^■- 



W' 



l»tl>>^) "^ 



r^ 






*S^.. 



^'i«i»i.E.>y 



I.: 



> ■^f>. 



y -' 



•> ■ j^ 






V V C ° "^ '^ ^ 












V 






> ,A^^ 






-^^ ^^'' .^"_^:.^'9^ .-o- ^ 















^'. .Av __ _ . _ . . 



^ " » X 






'^A v^' 






■^o 









v^^-^' "-. 



^=^_ 









cP . 



#^ .K^^ ''^;^ 



x^"^ -. 



v^-' ■'■>< 



^ .^'^- 






..-^^ 



-^A V 



i.^ 






'-i^ ^'^^ 



Oo 






.0 o^ 



o 



■o'^ .'' '"• '% 









>^ 



^ ::;r?^^ 



"^^ v^^ = 




". '^c 



>. * ^■'* 






■0' 



**, 



PHCENICIAN IRELAND. 



AUCTORE 
DOCTORE JOACHIMO LAURENTIO '^VILLANUEVA, 

RF.Gir fllSP. ORDINIS CaROLI III. EQUITF, CONCHENSIS ECCLKST.T. CANO^JICO, 

RfGIO ECCLESIASTE, ET MAT HlTtNSIUM ACAOEMIARDM 

HISPAN^ ET HISTORIC SOCIO. 



TRANSLATED, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES, 

AN ADDITIONAL PLATE, AND PTOLOMEY'S MAP MADE 

MODERN, 

BY HENRY O'BRIEN, ESQ. A«B. 

t • AUTHOR OF THE "PRIZE ESSAY''' UPON THE "ROUND TOVVERs" OF IrELAXD. 



Multa renascentur quae jam cecidere, cadentque 
Quae uuac sunt in usu ! — Hor. 



LONDON: 



LONGMAN & Co. PATERNOSTER ROW ; 
JOSEPH jkoBINS, BRIDE COURT, FLEET STREET. 

D UBLIN: 

R. M. TIMMS, GRAFTON STREET ; M. KEENE & SON, COLLEGE 
GREEN ; AND, F. W. WAKEMAN, D'OLLIER STREET. 

1833. 



^ 



Y.^1^ 







tl 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



A great portion of this work, as well in print as manu- 
script, having been destroyed at the late conflagration of 
Mr. Hardy's printing office in Dublin, where it was being 
published, the translator was obliged to commence his 
labors anew, else the volume should long since have been 
given to the public. 



DEDICATION. 



TO THE 



MOST NOBLE THE MARQUIS OF THOMOND, 

&c. &c. &c. 

My lord marquis. 

Had I not had the honor of bearing the 
same name, and of deriving consanguinity and con- 
nection from that ancient stock, of which your Lord- 
ship is, at once, the deserving head and the distin- 
guished representative, yet — when about to launch 
into light a work, which purports to unfold the origin 
of Ireland's early colonization, and seeking for a pa- 
tron whose discriminating taste and personal ac- 
quirements, would add a charm to the advantages of 
station and of birth — my eye should instinctively 
direct itself toward ymi ; — for, where, in the un- 
broken catalogue of L'an's proud -born sons, could 
I find another name so intimate It/ interwoven with 



VI 

her halcyon splendors, as that of the benign 
patriarch of the house of Thomond ? 

But it is not alone^ my Lord, as occupying a princely 
post, in monarchical succession, among the Scythian* 
or later Irish — immortalised by the glories of Cean- 
chora and Clontarf — that this homage should be 
your due ; but as the direct descendant of the very 
principal and leader of that earlier and nobler , and, 
in every way more estimable and illustrious dynasty, 
the Tuatha Danaans, or true, Iranian, Milesian 
Irish — the incorporation of whom with the Scythians 
— after the latter, by conquest, had wrested from 
them the soil — gave rise to the compound of Scoto- 
Milesians ; which no one has heretofore been able 
to elucidate. 

These Tuatha Danaans, my Lord, whom your 
forefather, Brien, conducted into our '' sacred island/* 
were the expelled Budhists of Persia -neither Phoe- 
nicians nor Celts — whom the intolerance of the 
Brahmins and the persecution of the Rajas had 
thrown upon the ocean, over whose bosom wafted 



* Who came not from Scandinavia but the place which is 
now called Tartary. 



Vll 



to our genial shores, they did not only import with 
them all the culture of the east, with its accom- 
panying refinement and polished civilization — 
evidenced by those memorials of lunettes, anklets, 
fibulae, gold crowns, paterae, &c., with which our 
green valleys still abound— but raised the country 
to that pinnacle of literary and religious beatitude, 
which made it appear, to the fancies of distant and 
enraptured ^' bards," more the day dream of romance, 
than the sober outline of an actual locality. This, 
my Lord, will account, for the scepticism of Dio- 
dorus as to the " Hyperborean Isle ;" and, at the 
same time, for the vivid portraiture and enchanting 
delineation, in which the divine Orpheus sung of 
its happy inhabitants. 

After the establishment of this colony in our in- 
vigorating region, b. c. 1200, no one can know better 
than your Lordship's self, how that — in memory of 
\he\x former residence — they gave it the name of Iran 



* The word Bards^ emancipated from the mystification of 
etymological empyrics, is but a modification of Boreades, 
the name of our ancient Irish poetic divines — who, again, were 
so denominated, not less in reference to their geographical 
position than their elementary worship. 



Vlll 



— erroneously called Erin — which — signifying, as it 
does, the land of the faithful, or the sacred isle — 
shews the existence of this epithet before the reve- 
lation of Christianity. This original " Iran^' the 
early Greeks — who were Pelasgi, and allies of our 
Tuatha Danaans — commuted into lerne — a mere 
translation of the word, from, ieros, sacred ; and, neos, 
an island — which, again, the Latins, without, at all, 
knowing the meaning of the term,* transformed into 
Hibernia ; f but which, however, with soul-stirring 
triumph, means exactly the same thing, namely, 
" sacred island" — the initial H, being only the aspi- 
rate of the Greek, ieros, sacred ; neos, island re- 



* And yet the primeval sanctity of our isle was admitted 
by their writer Avienus, when he says cf it, '* sacrum sic insu- 
lani d'lxere prise i'* De Oris Maritirais. 

f This name, therefore, which has so much puzzled etymo- 
logists to analyse, has nothing on earth to do with Hiar, the 
west ; or, Iberin, extremes ; or Hehcr, or, lleremon ; or any other 
such on flandisli nonsense. What, then, becomes of the reveries 
of Mr. Ritson ? '* This country" (Ireland) says he, ** it appears 
was already inhabited by the Hiberni, or Hiberiones, of whose 
origin, any more than that of the Scots, nothing is known, but 
by conjecture, that the former were a colony from Britain." — 
Introduction to " Annals of the Caledonians, Picis, and Scots." — 
Never was such ignorance betrayed since the beginning of the 



IX 

maining unaltered, and the letter, h, only interposed 
for sound sake. So that, whether we consider it 
as, Irmi, lerne or Hibernia ; or under the mul- 
tiplied variations, which diverge, almost inter- 
minably, from those three originals, in the several 
languages which thei/ respectively represent — they 
will be found, each and all, to resolve themselves 
into this one, great, incontrovertible, position of 
— the '' Sacred Island." 

But it was not alone, my Lord, under this vague 
designation of sanctity, that your venerable fore- 
fathers identified themselves with our island ; but — 
lest there should be any misconception as to the 
species of worship whence that " sanctity" had ema- 
nated — they gave this scene of its exercise two other 



world. The word Hiberni, vulgarised Hiberiones, in English, 
Hibernians, is not the name of any particular people, but a des- 
criptive epithet, meaning " inhabitants of the sacred island" — 
our own Iran. — And the people whose character had obtained 
it this designation, had no connection whatever with Britain ! 
Equally in the dark was he as to the origin and era of the 
Scots, as, indeed, was every other writer up to this date^ May 
15th, 1833, on the Ancient History of Scotland. But if Mr. 
Ritson was right in asserting that *' nothing was known" on 
those matters, he should have confined the dogma to his own 
resources — other resources now shew the reverse. 



names, viz., Phud Inis, and hils-na-Phuodha — 
which, at once, associate the "worship" with the 
profession of the worshippers — for, Phud Inis, is 
Budh Inis — Ph, or, F, being only the aspirate of, 
B, and commutable with it — that is, Budh Island : 
and Inis-na-Plmodha, is Inis-na Buodha, that is, 
the island of Budha. 

Your Lordship must also know, how that, to cele- 
brate the mysteries of their religious creed, they 
erected those temjdes, which still embellish our land- 
scape ; and which — mystified in their character, like 
their prototypes in the east, under the vague desig- 
nations of "Pillars" and ^' Round Towers" — have 
puzzled the antiquaries of all countries to develope, 
until I had the good fortune to pierce the cloud. 

And, yet, my Lord, will you not commisserate 
with me the degeneracy ? and say " how are the 
mighty fallen ? " when informed that the individual 
who has revived so many truths, immersed beneath 
the rubbish of three thousand years accumulation-^ 
and that when his researches did not apply alone to 
Ireland,* but took in the scope of the whole ancient 



* The formation as well as the date of this, the jyresent name 
of our island, I account for in a forthcoming note. 



XI 

world — has been defrauded of that prize for which 
his zeal had been enlisted^ and his young energies 
evoked ? while — ^from that system of '* jobbing' with 
which our country has been long accursed — he has 
seen the badge of his victory transferred to another, 
merely because that other was a member of the 
council of the deciding tribunal, who disregarded 
the crying fact, that the whole texture of their 
friend's essay must, inevitably, be untenable ! * 

However, my Lord, in the consciousness of your 
countenance I find my consolation ; and, soon as my 
** Towers" appear, I doubt not, this wise (IJ '' tribu- 
nal" will reap the fruits, together, of their own 
discornfiture and of my revenge. 

In the mean time, my Lord, I have the honor to 
subscribe myself, 

With every feeling of respect, 

and affectionate consideration, 

your Lordship's most obliged, most faithful 

and most devoted, humble servant, 

HENRY O'BRIEN. 



* Of this I give, by anticipation^ the most startling and 
overwhelming proof, e?en in a note appended towards the end of 
the 33rd chapter of the present work. 






^ o 



< S3 




PTOLOMVS ancient >1LA.P of IRELAND. 

Amenclpd and Moderuizpcl. 





c^ sT *-^ Cu 







l^. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



Should it be asked by any of my ^^ old associates," 
who, from college recollections, may be disposed 
to overvalue whatever capabilities I possess, why, 
wishing to court popularity as a waiter, I would not 
rather originate some theme of my own than make 
my labor subservient to the fame of another — to this 
I shall reply, that I am not so actuated by the desire 
of appearing an original, as to forego what I conceive 
to be a favourable opportunity of doing a practical 
good, by presenting to the great bulk of my country- 
men — and countrywomen also — who, in amiable devo- 
tion to the land of their forefathers, ever allied and 
connected with the purest virtues of the heart, yield 
not to the daughters of the once-celebrated Sparta, 
whilst in all those finer sensibilities* which constitute 
the charm of social life, and sublime the human 

* •' The ladies of Ireland," says Carr, an intelligent and 
highly respectable English writer," possess a peculiarly pleasing 
frankness of manners, and a vivacity in conversation, which 
render highly interesting all they do and all they say. In thi» 

B 



11 TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

species to a nearer relation to divinity, they stand 
proudly and pre-eminently beyond them — a faithful 
and, I trust, an acceptable transcript of the re- 
searches of an individual, who — in the genuine flow 
of an ennobling gratitude for the ordinary hos- 
pitality* which Ireland offers to every stranger — sat 
down in the vigor of a green old age — an old age as 
full of honor as it has been distinguished by useful- 
ness — when the crude notions of enthusiasm are 
naturally extinct, and the mind fixed upon the 
awful certainty of its near transit to another sphere, 
rejects the intrusions of Vanity and self-conceit, not 
less of worldly parade than literary hypothesisf — to 

open sweetness of deportment, ihe'libertine finds no encourage- 
ment, for their modesty must be the subject of remark and 
eulogy with every stranger." — Stranger in Ireland, p. 148. 

" The ladies of Ireland are generally elegantly, and fre- 
quently highly-educated ; and it is no unusual circumstance to 
hear a young lady enter with a critical knowledge into the 
merits of the most celebrated authors, with a diffidence which 
shows that she is moved by a thirst for knowledge, and not by 
vanity. A greater musical treat can scarcely be enjoyed, than 
to hear some of them perform their own Irish airs, which are 
singularly sweet, simple, and affecting. Those who have been 
present at a ball in Ireland, can best attest the spirit, good- 
humour, and elegance which prevail in it." — Stranger in Ire- 
land, p. 149„ 

* Sunt sane homines hospitalissimi, neque illis ullil in re 
magis gratificari potes, quam vel sponte ac voluntate eorum 
domos frequentare, vel illis invitatum condicere. Stan, de reb. 
in Hib. gest. lib. 1, p. 33. 

t Opinionum comraenta delet dies; naturae judicia con- 
firmat. — Cicero. 



TRANSLATORS PREFACE. HI 

remove the rubbish which overhung our antiquities, 
and exhibit before the eyes of an admiring world, 
the source of that maa^nificence which commanded 
the homage of this world before ; — anxious only to 
elicit truth, and in the laudable pursuit of this para- 
mount destination^ deeming no industry too great — 
no pains unrequited. Such being the spirit that influ- 
enced our author^ in the origin and prosecution of 
this his design, I should be ashamed of myself if I 
could allow any narrow feelings, of false delicacy or 
overweening self-importance, to interfere with my 
respect for such exemplary worth ; but chiefly, and 
more especially, when the fruits of such an impulse 
have been brought to bear upon a country which, 
whether its civil condition, or its literary character, 
be the topic of debate, never fails to enlist my 
keenest emotions, and to vibrate with interest to my 
inmost soul. — Hibernicus sum, Hibernici nihil a me 
alienum puto.* 

"Nature," says Gibbon, "has implanted in our 
breasts a lively impulse to extend the narrow span 
of our existence, by the knowledge of the events that 
have happened on the soil which we inhabit, of the 

* Breathes there the man with soul so dead, 
VYho never to himself hath said, 
Tkis is my own, my native land? 

Scott. 

*' Nescio qua natalc solum dulccdinc cunclos 
Tungit, et immemores non sinit esse sni." 
Ji 2 



IV TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

characters and actions of those men from whom our 
descent, as individuals or as a people, is probably 
derived. The same laudable emulation will prompt 
us to review and to enrich our common treasure of 
national glory ; and those who are best entitled to the 
esteem of posterity are the most inclined to celebrate 
the merits of their ancestors." 

But as utility, not celebrity, is my object, I shall 
forbear descanting upon my own merits in the under- 
taking, lest those who are ignorant of my motives, 
and of the frankness in which I habitually indulge, 
should suppose that any further explanation, in 
which self must be so prominent, would imply a 
certain tenacity inconsistent with this avowal.* To 
the critics, therefore, and to an enlightened public I 
consign the task, while I confine myself to a consi- 
deration of the original composition. 

The purport then of the author is to prove — by the 
analysis of names imposed in the days of Paganism 
and retained amongst us ^ till the present, and by 



* Nor, indeed, were the subject a less grateful one, would 
I consider the province of a translator so inconsiderable by any 
means, knowing well that it depends greatly upon the indivi- 
dual so to invigorate, at least, if not to mould, the materials as 
to make them appear his own ; and should my example in this 
instance encourage those endued with brighter qualifications, to 
undertake the translation of those Irish MSS. which lie moul- 
dering upon the shelves of our University, I shall rest satisfied 
with having done some good *' in my day," were it only that 
of pioneering to those who may reflect a lustre o*er the land- 
scape. 



translator's preface. V 

the similarity of worship cultivated in Ireland, before 
the introduction of Christianity, to that practised 
in Phoenicia at the same era of time — that a colony 
from the latter place must at one period, and that a 
very distant one, have visited our shores, and spread 
their dominion over the whole extent of the island.* 
It is true I may be here met by an objection, as 
to '' what possible advantage such inquiry could now 
promote, either as regards the issue of the discussion 
itself — the remoteness of the period, and the absence 
of intervening records opposing so many obstacles — 
or its effects, if successful, upon the literature, the 
commerce, or the politics of this country." With 
the lukewarm and apathetic, I doubt not, this ob- 
jection may carry much weight, as they want but 
little argument to countenance the heartlessness of 
their recreant degeneracy . '* What is it to us," they 
say, " who trod those ' green acres ' in ancient time 
— whoever they were, they have long since passed 

* Who fill the pages of history? Political and military 
leaders, who have lived for one end, to subdue and govern their 
fellow-beings. These occupy the fore-ground ; and the people 
— the human race — dwindle into insignificance, and are almost 
lost behind their masters. The principal and noblest object of 
history is, to record the vicissitudes of society, its spirit in dif- 
ferent ages, the causes which have determined its progress and 
decline, and especially the manifestation and growth of its 
highest attributes and interests of intelligence ; of the religious 
principle, of moral sentiment, of the elegant and useful arts, of 
the triumph of man over nature and himself. — Dr, Channing on 
Power and Greatness. 



VI TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

away, and we are only interested as to the present 
occupancy. The analysis of names — suggested by 
caprice, or at best an allusion to some passing acci- 
dent, no longer valuable — may afford entertainment, 
perhaps, to etymologists, but none to us. To us it is 
sufficient that we can disport our exterior, and main- 
tain a seemly attitude during our transitory sojourn, 
among the butterflies* of the hour, while the book- 
worm and recluse may enjoy all the pleasures they 
can possibly extract by poring over the pages of 
time-worn manuscripts." 

" When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming, 
Drest, voted, shone, and may-be something more; 

With dandies dined ; heard senators declaiming ; 
Seen beauties brought to market by the score, 

Sad rakes to sadder husband's chastely taming ; 
There's little left but to be bored or bore ; 

Witness those * ci-devant jewies hommes' who stem 

The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth thera."t 



* Were a home tour considered as necessary to a finished 
education as a foreign one, our high-born youth might visit 
other countries possessed of the necessary accomplishment of 
being able to describe their own, in which too many of them 
are lamentably defective. The admirer of rural beauty in all 
its varied forms may be here fully gratified ; while the man 
who delights in antiquarian lore will, in Ireland, find numerous 
monuments connected with the annals of a nation whose his- 
tory, from the most remote period, has been so marked by 
vicissitudes, as to render them at this day, perhaps, the most 
singularly circumstanced people in Europe. — Fitzgerald. 

t Byron, 



TRANSLATORS PREFACE. VU 

If, in the sentiments here attributed to a certain 
class of my countrymen, I should be supposed to 
include only the '^ giddy" and the "gay/' I take leave 
at once to correct the misconception, and — though 
reluctant to censure — to enlarge the dimensions of 
my portrait. It is a melancholy reflection, that, while 
all nations on the globe feel a manifest elevation in 
tracing the particulars of their origin to the very 
minuteness of detail, the Irish alone should lie dor- 
mant in the cause, and — though once distinguished 
for the more than religious zeal with which they 
registered their histories, and preserved their genea- 
logies ; — a practice, which — originating in the same 
love of order and motives to regularity, that influ- 
enced the Israelites in the preservation of theirs, viz. 
to regulate the succession to the throne and other 
dignified posts, as well military as magisterial — no 
less elucidates our assertion, of the early civilization 
of the Scoto-Milesians, as the true Irish are empha- 
tically and properly designated, than it does their 
intercourse at one period* with that ancient people of 
God, from whom they adopted the practice, and whom 
they greatly surpassed in some improvements — yet. 



* The Cuthites, Scuthae, or Irish, were seated on the coast 
of the Red Sea when Moses passed through it. It is probable 
that after the loss of Pentapolis they united, under the name of 
Phoenicians, on the Red Sea, and these were they who gave 
protection to Moses after he had been refused a passage by the 
King of Edoni. — Vallanccy. 



Vlll TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

alas ! do they now — seem to have lost, perhaps^ 
with the sense of their national independence, all 
sense, at the same time, of their hereditary honor, 
and ancestral nobleness ! * Look to China, and see 
how she delineates the progress of her empire 
through ages and ages of uninterrupted continua- 



* To our want of national feeling, and our tasteless and 
ignorant prejudices, may be attributed the danger from which 
we lately escaped of losing — what, perhaps, we have most 
reason, and deserved most to have lost — our unrivalled national 
music. Divided, as we have been, by the bigotry and unge- 
nerous policy of our rulers, aided by our own ancient super- 
stitions—deserted by our nobles — driven by our poverty, our 
misfortunes, and our wrongs, to the moping inanity of despair 
— our melodies would soon have shared the fate of our min- 
strels, if the genius and industry of two individuals had not 
averted such a catastrophe for ever. Moore, by uniting them 
to poetry " worthy of their tenderness, their energy, and their 
spirit," has raised the airs of his native country to a widely 
extended popularity ; and the natives of the old and the new 
world now respect the feelings, and pity the misfortunes, of the 
islanders, whose strange and artless stories can excite, by a 
power like magic, the strongest emotions of sadness or of joy. 
— Dublin Examiner. 

DEAR HARP OF MY COUNTRY. 

Bear Harp of my country ! in darkness I found thee, 

The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long. 
When proudly, my own Island Harp ! I unbound thee. 

And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song ! 
The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness 

Have wakened thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill ; 
But so oft hast thou echoed the deep sigh of sadness. 

That even in thy mirth it will steal from thee still. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. ix 



tiori. Turn to Egypt, to Chaldea, and to Arcadia^ 
and do they not do the same ?* The houses of 
Austria and Ascot, single families, and much nearer 
home, trace up their origin to Noah himself. Yet 
all these pretensions, however exaggerated and in- 
consistent, and at variance with the cosmogeny 
given in Holy Writ, are, notwithstanding, listened 
to with something like attention, in deference, per- 
haps, to that ^' Amor Patriae," that ever pardonable 
vanity, which they irresistibly obtrude upon us.f 

Other nations, also, that may have controlled their 
fancies within more moderate bounds, and confined 
their ascensions to more tangible aeras, have yet 



Dear Harp of my country ! farewell to thy numbers, 

This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine ; 
Go, sleep with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers, 

Till touched by some hand less unworthy than mine. 
If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover. 

Have throbbed at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone ; 
I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over. 
And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own. 

Moore's Irish Melodies. 
* The comparison of these names with that of Ireland will 
not appear so very preposterous, nor their juxta-position so very 
casual, when my •* Essay upon the Round Towers" shall have 
been read. 

t To trace nations to their origin is among the most curious 
and delightful of intellectual pursuits : it establishes important 
facts ; illustrates sacred records ; and, while it confirms all the 
great truths of political science, it tends to gratify a patriotic 
vanity ; for nations, like individuals, are proud of being de- 
scended from illustrious ancestors. — Whitly, 



translator's preface. 



been allowed some slight tincture of romance, and 
have improved the indulgence to the very " poetry " 
of aspiration. In no instance that I am aware of 
have those claims been disputed, if we but except 
the nations above adduced, nor can that properly be 
called an exception, as the facts and assertions are 
virtually ceded, when the effort is made to explain 
them by an accommodated system of chronology. 
But if Ireland — distracted, impoverished Ireland — 
should raise her puny voice, and breathe an allusion 
to her primitive consequence, the sound would be so 
dissonant from authorised reports* — set forth by in- 
terested or mercenary scribes, confirmed by repeti- 
tion and ingenious circulation, while all attempts at 
disproval were studiously suppressed — that the 
world would look amazed at her impudence in the 
assumption, and reject at once, and without a hear- 
ing, her prejudged claims ! Shame, however, upon 
that policy which could war with the literature of a 
country ! and double shame upon that country which 
could allow itself, under any circumstances, to be so 



* Peter Lombard, who was titular Archbishop of Armagh 
in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, states, in his Analecta, that 
the ** English governors endeavoured to destroy or carry away 
every monument of antiquity belonging to the Irish of which 
they could obtain possession ; and that a great number were 
shut up in the Tower of London, and consigned to forgetful- 
ness, which, if translated, would throw new and interesting 
light on religion and letters." 



TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. XI 

debased, as to have its records swept away, its lights 
stifled, and its monuments obliterated, except such 
as accident may have saved, or laborious industry 
decyphered, from the scanty materials of inscriptions 
and names, without a single clue to guide the histo- 
rian in his path, or a single star but the polar one of 
truth, to steer his course by, in the midnight of his 
despairing ! ** On turning,'' says Whitty, '' from the 
page of antiquity to the accounts of native annalists, 
we find the gloom which environs our inquiry pene- 
trated but by few gleams of brightness. The 
bigoted fury of her invaders, and the gothic policy 
of her rulers, have been busy with the historical 
documents of Ireland. The Dane and the Briton 
were alike hostile to the proofs of a former glory ; 
and what the Pagan spared the Christian sought to 
demolish.* Their relentless antipathy being so suc- 
cessful, perhaps the interest of truth would have 
suffered little had their baneful industry been 
greater. The records which survive are few, and of 
questionable authority. The information which is 
to be derived from them is confused and contra- 



* Booth, Analecta. p. 557, et seg. Lynch Cambr. Evers. 
pp. 4L-157. The Magnates Hiberniae, in their remonstrance to 
Pope John XXII. charge the English government, of the 13th 
century, with the destruction of their laws. (Hearne, Scoti- 
chron. vol. iii. p. 908.) This spirit prevailed even in the time 
of Cromwell. His soldiers had a particular antipathy to the 
harp. Lynch Cambr. Evers. p. 37. 



Xii TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

dictory. They establish no one fact of early Irish 
history in a satisfactory manner, and are much 
better calculated to perplex than to elucidate." 

From my soul I am puzzled to find a pallia- 
tive for such a system* — a system which, ere long,f 
must recoil with dismay before the triumphant 
blaze of innocence aggrieved — or if I must elicit 
some benefit from its heart-rending sorrows, it will 
be, in its affording some excuse for the culpable, and 
otherwise inexplicable, supinenessj that pervades all 



* Opus opinum casibus, atrox seditionibus, etiam in pace 
sevum. — Livy, 

t What is a Crisis? Our great Lexicographer has well 
defined it, as " the point in which the disease kills, or changes 
to the better : the decisive moment when sentence is passed." 
Precisely to this point has Ireland arrived; her disease — 
sometimes slowly and imperceptibly, but always steadily, pro- 
gressive — has of late advanced with overpowering rapidity ; 
and the fiat must speedily go forth which can issue but in one 
alternative — healthful renovation, or final dissolution. — Ckar- 
lotte Elizabeth. 

No one affects to deny the awful importance of this junc- 
ture : two parties, for ages and centuries divided by an impas- 
sable barrier, now start up in simultaneous opposition to each 
other ; and both to a government which would unite them on 
a basis as repugnant to the darling prejudices of the one, as it is 
subversive of the vital principle that animates the other. — Char- 
lotte Elizabeth. 

X The idle indifference which we evince for the knowledge 
and preservation of our antiquities, is surely, to say the least of 
it, but little creditable to our nationality or our taste. In 
no part of Great Britain, we may safely venture to assert. 



translator's preface. xiii 

classes of the Irish, as to the consideration of what 
they once were — a supineness which, I repeat, cannot 
else be accounted for, than by the successful opera- 
tion of that iniquitous policy,* by which they would 
at last seem habituated and reconciled to their de- 
gradation ! 

" In all, save form alone, how changed ! And who 
That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye — 
Who but would deem their bosoms burned anew 
With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty !"t 

Let it not be supposed, however, that the sting of 
this impeachment is at all levelled against the present 
government, or even against those who have preceded 
them in the administration. No ; I can myself bear 
honourable testimony to the ready willingness with 
which they, and their august master, our gracious 
and most beloved sovereign, King William the 

would a similar feeling be found among the enlightened classes 
of society. — Dublin Examiner, 1816. 

It is extraordinary, how little interest the gentlemen of this 
county, and indeed of every other in Ireland, take in any pub- 
lication intended to promote the improvement of their country. 
Hely Button, Statist. Surv. Co. Clare, 

* We cannot, with Doctor Lynch and others, but lament 
the fatal policy of the English, who, until the reign of James 
the First, took all possible means to destroy our old writings, 
as they did those of Scotland, in the reign of Edward the First. 
They thought that the frequent perusal of such works kindled 
the natives to rebellion, from reminding them of the power and 
independence of their ancestors. — O'Connor Dissert, p. 139. 

t Byron. 



XIV TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

Fourth, encourage every pursuit that could supply 
the deficiency, or elucidate the purport, of our muti- 
lated annals. Nay more, I can affirm, that the taste 
— I had almost said the avidity, or rather the rage, 
as that is the more prevailing term — for Irish docu- 
ments, at this moment, in the British metropolis and 
in England altogether, exceeds any thing of the 
kind ever before v^itnessed ; and to such a pitch is it 
carried, that on every occasion upon which such docu- 
ments are advertised for sale in Ireland, the London 
booksellers send over agents to attend such sales ; and 
from the poverty of our community, and its decayed 
interest, at the same time, for all such research, I 
need not say, that, in almost every instance, the 
English are the purchasers. By the kind exertions 
of a literary friend,* who exhibits in his conduct an 
honorable contrast to the apathy of which I here 
complain, I have been furnished with an alphabetical 
catalogue of works that have lately produced, at the 
hands of Englishmen, in the city of Dublin, and 
at second hand, the respective sums affixed to each ; 
all considerably higher than the prices of publication. 



* Sir Charles Coote, Bart. This gentleman has, tluring- the 
course of a long life, paid particular attention to the literature 
of his own country. No work has ever been published upon 
the history, the antiquities, or the statistics thereof, of which he 
has not made it a point to procure a copy. The consequence 
is, that he now possesses the most authentic and best assorted 
Irish library of any in the kingdom. 



TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XV 

and incomparably more so than what a mere regard 
to value could have elicited. 

My charge^ therefore, cannot apply to the present 
government, or to the present race of Englishmen 
at all ; but to governments and races of an anterior 
date, who, in the fell work of spoliation, yielded 
not to the Ostmen or Danes,* — our ruthless foes, and 
the foes of all moral culture — whilst they surpassed 
them far, in the dexterous ingenuity, and masked 
insincerity, with which they effected their ravages.f 
These are the persons whom I would impugn ; and 
grievously concerned am I to add, that on the fair 
face of the land itself, sustained by its bounty, and 
invigorated by its atmosphere,X are to be found in- 



* The invaders of Ireland in the ninth century consisted of a 
mixed crew of Danes, Frisians, Norwegians, Swedes, and 
Livonians. The ancient Irish distinguished them into two 
septs from the colour of their hair ; one being called Fion-gail, 
or Fin-gal, the White Strangers, and the other Dubh-gail, the 
Black Strangers. Fingal is supposed to have been settled by 
the former, and Donegal by the latter. — McGregor. 

f Walsh thus pathetically laments the ruin of his country by 
the Danes and Ostmen ;— *' There was no monarch now, (the 
ninth century,) but the saddest interregnum ever any Christian 
or heathen enemies could wish ; no more king over his people, 
but that barbarous heathen Turgesius ; no more now the * Island 
of Saints.' " 

X The climate of Ireland, and the fertility of its soil, have 
been praised by all writers, as well friends as foes, who have at 
all alluded to the topic. Orosius says, " Ireland, though less 
extensive than Britain, is, from the temperature of its chmate, 



XVI TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

dividuals, and they too not few, who, calling them- 
selves Irishmen, and affecting all the pride insepa- 
rable from the name, do yet — from some obliquity 

better supplied with useful resources." — L. 1, c. 2. Isidore 
states, "it is smaller than Britain, but more fertile from its 
situation."— Orig. L. 14, c. 6. The venerable Bede observes, 
that ** Ireland greatly surpasses Britain in the healthfulness 
and serenity of its air." — Hist. Ec. L. 1, c. 1. And Camden, 
'* Nature surely must have looked upon this zephyric kingdom 
v»^ith its most benignant eye." — Brit. p. 7*27. Whilst the vera- 
cious and impartial (?) Cambrensis himself adds, that, ** Of all 
climates Ireland is the most temperate ; neither Cancer's violent 
heat ever drives them to the shade, nor Capricorn's cold invites 
them to the hearth ; but from the softness and peculiar tem- 
perature of the atmosphere, all seasons are there genial and 
tepid." Again — "Neither infectious fogs, nor pestilential 
winds, nor noxious airs, are ever felt there ; so that the aid of 
doctors is seldom looked for, and sickness rarely appears ex- 
cept among the dying." — Top. Hib. Diet. I. 25, 27. Would 
that this last named writer had but done as much justice to its 
inhabitants ! 

"The climate is so salubrious,'' says Carr, " that we find 
by history those plagues which so much devastated England had 
rarely reached Ireland. The leaves seldom fall till Novem- 
ber ; from the almost constant motion of its atmosphere, and 
the balmy softness of it, Ireland has been for ages past called 
the * Land of Zephyrs;' it was also called, on account of the 
beauty of its verdure, * the Emerald Isle,' and the * Green 
Island in the West.' " — Stranger in Ireland, p. 129. 

To the great and peculiar extent of calcareous or limestone 
strata of which our island is composed, we may chiefly attri- 
bute the fertility of our soil, and the salubrity of our climate; 
and if we dared venture to fathom the intentions of an Almighty 
and beneficent providence, we would point to this geological 



TRANSLATOR S PREFACF: . XVll 

of intellect or perverseness of intention — think they 
amplify their importance by vilifying* their native 
soil ; — and — to bring their dastardly desertion to a 
still greater climax— only recognize respectability as 
imported from abroad !f 



peculiarity, as a single instance of his wisdom and ooodness, as, 
exposed as we are to the exhalations of the Atlantic, and the 
influence of westerly winds, onr soil would otherwise be unpro- 
ductive and our climate unliealthy- To the same cause is to he 
attributed much of the peculiarly romantic beauty of which we 
may justly boast; our waterfalls without number, our subter- 
ranean rivers, our natural bridges, our perpendicular sea cliffs, 
and, above all, our fairy caverns; all these are in almost 
every instance the result of this extensive calcareous formation, 
and are consequently found in no other country of the same 
extent, in equal variety, beauty, and abuiularjce. Most strange 
it is, that a laud so blessed and ornamented by the hand of pro- 
vidence should be so little appreciated and too often aban- 
doned by those to whom its fertility gives w^ealth, and to whom 
its beauty should give delight and happiness. — Dublin Penny 
Journal. 

* Why will the Protestants of Ireland permit this unfounded 
obloquy to rest on their beautiful country, ay, and too ojtenjoln 
in the aspersive cry^ when even a jilauce at their own homes 
might convince them, that the moral blight exhales not from the 
innocent bogs of poor Ireland. — Charlotte Elizabeth. 

■\ Revelling in all the pleasures and delights of rich and 
royal Italy, smiling with the beauties of that sunny soil — whilst 
many of his poor tenantry were weeping from want, and shiver- 
ing from cold and hunger — the lord of the manor was patron- 
izing the fine arts, and collecting, at great expense, costly 
ornaments and other objects to adorn his mansion in England, 
when he should return satiated with the fascinations and volup- 
tuous attractions of the continent. — Viscount Glentworth, 

C 



XVlll TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

** Poor, paltry slaves I yet born midst noblest scenes — 

Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men ? 

* * * * it 

Not such were the fathers your annals can boast, 
Who conquered and died for the freedom you lost! 
Not such was your land in her earlier hour — 
The day-star of nations in wisdom and power !"* 

To their own reflections, however, and to the con- 
tempt and condemnation of an enlightened, an in- 
dignant public, I consign such renegades, whilst I 
return to the subject whence I have been thus 
forced to digress. 

How to account, then, for this new spirit amongst 
the English public, to cultivate an acquaintance 
with the antiquities of Ireland, which they had so long 
neglected and so long affected to despise — a spirit 
too, so insatiable, that it will not now confine itself 
to works of acknowledged merit and reputed vera- 
city, but extends even to those which should have been 
exploded as fictions or absurd exaggerations — I con- 
fess myself wholly unprepared. One thing, however, 
is evident, that they are at last become sensible of 
the injustice with which we have so long been 
treated, and, feeling their own judgment at the same 
time not fairly dealt with in the misrepresentations 
imposed upon them, they have — with the character- 
istic honesty for which "John Bull" is remarkable, if 
his prejudices and errors be but fairly removed, and 

* Byron. 



TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. XIX 

the spirit, at the same time, with which he resents 
every such insult offered to his understanding — re- 
solved, as much as possible, to atone for the past, by 
enabling themselves to judge as to the question at 
issue for the future. 

But while lending myself as the translator of Dr. 
Villanueva's book, from my wish to extend all dis- 
quisitions bearing upon my country's renown, I must 
observe that I am not at all insensible to certain, as I 
conceive, aberrations, in his literary views, besides 
those which I have taken the liberty altogether to 
erase. That the Phoenicians had been in Ireland 
he is quite right to maintain. But as to the share 
they had in the early splendor of the country — 
the nature of their sojourn — and who had preceded 
them — as it would not become me here to discuss, I 
shall, unshackled by the apprehension of being con- 
sidered selfish, refer the reader, who wishes to have 
the true history of ancient Ireland y?;r once laid be- 
fore his mind's eye, to my Essay upon the " Round 
Towers"* of that country, in which I promise him 



* Dr. Villanueva's error as to the origin and destination of 
those mysterious structures is one in which he may well con- 
sole himself by the number of fellow-sufferers vUio have before 
foundered upon the same sandbank. When Cambrensis, Val- 
iancy, Montraorenci, Dalton, Beaufort, Milner, in short all 
the writers, as well natives as foreigners, who have alluded 
to the topic for the last seven hundred — \ may say, fifteen 
hundred — years, have been at fault on this theme, it is not to 
be wondered at that this eminent philologist, should add another 

c2 



XX TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

he will find this long mystified question at length, and 
to a demonstration, irresistibly elucidated. 

If, however, I may be allowed a passing observa- 
tion, without anticipating the subject here, it would 
be to say that the Phoenicians were only the carriers 
of that very ancient and sacred tribe, designated em- 
phatically " Tuatha Dedanan," that is, the '' Deda- 
nite diviners," who planting themselves in Ireland, 
after their expulsion from the east,* raised the isle — 

unit to the number of the shipwrecked. But he can well spare 
this and a few other almost inevitable defalcations, which, like 
spots upon the sun's disc, only serve to make the general talent 
which pervades his treatise the more brilliantly prominent. 

As the reader may, perhaps, wish to see a specimen of this 
venerable old gentleman's epistolary style, I subjoin the copy 
of a note which he addressed to me on my expressing a wish 
to see him after a separation of six or seven weeks, during 
which 1 had secluded myself, to adjust my thoughts upon the 
** Towers," — viz : — 

'^ J, L. Villanueva Henrico O^hhien salutem dicens, 
" O care amice ! Et quare tu, qui junior es, non dignaris ad 
me venire ? Vix 6 domo exeo, nam non bene valeo. Nihil- 
hominus, te adire curabo, si vires suppetant. Benevale, et ut 
soles, ama tuum amicum. 

"GJunii, 1832. J. L. Villanueva." 

* The rare and interesting tract on twelve religions, entitled 
**The Dabistan," and composed by a Mahomedan traveller, a 
native of Cashmere, named Mohsam, but distinguished by the 
assumed surname of Fani, or Perishable, begins with a wonder- 
fully curious chapter on the religion of Hushang, which was 
long- anterior to that of Zeratusht, but had continued to be se- 
cretly professed by many learned Persians, even to the author's 
time : and several of the most eminent of them dissenting, in 



translator's preface. xxi 

which they also denominated from their former place 
of abode — to that pinnacle of literary and religious 
reputation which made it o, focus of intellect in the 
old pagan world. 

Of this distinguished caste of people — who^, by 
the way, built the ^' Round Towers/' those standing 
records oi our primitive scientific culture, — the Phoe- 
nicians were only the transporters j yet had they the 
dexterity — by reason of their indispensible agency as 
navigators, and the power with which they com- 
manded the dominion of the seas- -to monopolize the 
whole credit of civilizing the human race, which 
was onli/ true in as far as they joined by their ship- 
ping the different quarters of the globe. 

Here, then, is the source of those egregious blun- 
ders, which all our historians have committed in 
reference to the Phoenicians, at once cut away; and 
another mistake emanating from this, and in the 

raany points, from the Gabrs, and persecuted by the ruling 
powers of their country, had retired to India ; where they com- 
piled a number of books, now extremely scarce, which Mohsam 
had perused, and with the writers of which, or with many of 
them, he had contracted an intimate friendship: from them he 
learned that a powerful monarchy had been established for 
ages in Iran, before the accession of Cayumers; that it was 
called the Mahnbadean dinasty, for a reason which will soon 
be mentioned ; and that many princes, of whom seven or eight 
only are named in the Dabistan, and among them Mohbul, or 
Maha Beli, had raised that empire to the zenith of human 
glory. If we can rely on this evidence, which to me appears 
unexceptionable t the Iranian monaichy must have been the 
oldest in the World. — Sir W. Jones. 



XXil TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

case of Ireland, more seductive in its overtures, is 
now, in consequence, easily obviated. 

It was too fashionable with the gentlemen who 
have preceded me in the drudgery of Irish antiqua- 
rian research, to flatter the self-love of the present 
Milesian natives — of whom I am proud to boast my- 
self one— by ascribing to their colony those high- 
flown scenes of primeval grandeur of which Ireland 
was undoubtedly at one time the theatre; and of which 
too, without being able adequately to grapple with the 
point, or to adduce any thing like substantial insight 
into either its date, nature, or promoters, those 
writers, had, notwithstanding, some superficial, in- 
definite and vague, conceptions. No position in 
history was ever more false. So far from the Mile- 
sians, who were a mixed Scythian colony, implicit 
followers of Zaoaster and not Spaniards,*(as the Dr. 
has himself admitted) being — as a nation — lovers of 
literature^ they cultivated, on the contrary, a pro- 
fession — that of arms — which affected to scorn it as an 
effeminate luxury. Nor was it until by an admixture 

* They merely touched at Spain on their way to Ireland 
from Scythia, keeping up, however, a friendly intercourse with 
the Spaniards after their arrival in Ireland, for the hospitable 
accommodation which they had experienced on their coasts. 
They retained their name, Scythi, Scoti, or Scythians^ until the 
eleventh century, when they resigned it to the Scots, a colony 
of their own from Ireland, and resumed, instead, one of the 
more ancient names of the country, viz. Ire, with the affix, landt 
making the compound ** Ireland/^ 



• *• 



TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXIU 

with their learned predecessors in the occupation of 
the soil, and witnessing the charms of their refined 
pursuits — in which they were allowed still to indulge, 
though unaccompanied with those religious peculiari- 
ties for the celebration of which they had erected the 
''Round Towers," and which the Milesians, upon their 
conquest, had cancelled and obliterated — it was not 
until then, I say, that the latter, fired by the moral 
ether which the lessons of their new slaves had in- 
spired, got infected with the sublimity of their en- 
nobling acquirements, and set themselves down, 
accordingly, to emulate their instructors. 

Having mentioned the subject of the ''Round 
Towers" of Ireland, as a rock upon which the anti- 
quaries of all countries have so miserably split — not 
less as to their " destination and uses,'' than the era of 
their erection — I may be excused if in the honest 
fervor of patriotic triumph, undamped by the chill-- 
ness of ill-requited success, I should proclaim that 
those several difficulties have at last been solved, and 
the history of those structures made as obvious to 
every capacity as if the whole catalogue of their de- 
tails had been graven upon their walls with the im- 
pressive incision of steel upon adamant. Low and 
contemptible have been the purposes which shallow 
speculators, or interested calumniators, have at- 
tempted to associate with those noble edifices ; but 
— the mist once dispelled — those Round Towers will 
stand forward as the proof — not only of that envied 



XXIV TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

antiquity which our bards have so chaunted — but of 
the literary and religious taste which gave rise to 
those buildings, and of the grand and philosophic 
principle which guided the architect in giving them 
their pecidiar form. 

But to return, another objection remains yet to be 
disposed of before I relieve the reader's patience, per- 
haps already too much exhausted, and that is, the un- 
fitness of a foreigner for the performance of a task, in- 
volving, it would seem, a personal knowledge of the 
topography of the Island, the prejudices and habits, 
the character and genius of the various sects and 
denominations by whom the place is inhabited, with 
some interest in their fortune, or identity of feeling 
in their welfare. The compass of their views must 
be very limited indeed who think that to be master 
of those various requisites it could be necessary to 
pass a life on the theatre of debate. Without stop- 
ping, therefore, any farther to expose the lameness 
of this argument — who, let me ask, was the author 
of that composition, which, professing to be a history 
of Ireland, and its conquest (?)*by Henry the Second, 
was, in reality, nothing more than a tissue of 
falsehood and abuse, concocted in the spirit of indi- 



* They were never conquered by any people until betrayed 
to Henry II, in 1172, who bestowed the sovereignty upon his 
son John : but yet the kings of England were never called only 
lords of Ireland till the title of '' king" was bestowed on Henry 
VIII. by the Irish states themselves in parliament. — Hale*. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACJE. XXV 

vidual * and national hatred, additionally inflamed 
by an engrossing vanity, f and a profligate disre- 
regard even to ordinary decency in its indulgence J — 

* This was against Aubin O'Molloy, a monk of the order of 
Citeaux, and abbot of Baltinglass, by whom he was defeated 
in a quarrel. 

t His anticipations of repute and literary immortality from 
the performa-nce, he thus pompously put forth in his preface : 
" Ore legarpopuli perque omna secula famA, 
Si quid habent veri vatum presagia vivara." 

But hear what '* Gratianus Lucius," the assumed name of 
John Lynch, Archdeacon of Tuam, 16G2, says of him — '* Li- 
bros suos plebeculae spurcitiis inquinavit, et vulgi najvis toti 
genti ab ipso adscriptis farcire constituit, sicut aranea virus e 
thymo, mel apis exsugit ; sic e pessimis quibus que quorumvis 
Hibernorum moribus fasciculum ille fecit, missa facieus quaj 
apud Hibernos praeclariora repererat. Sordes tamen istas ille 
pro gemmis habere visus est, quas eligens et excipiens tanquam 
elegantiora praisenti volumine digessit, instar suis cui magis 
volupe est sterquilinii volutabro quam inter suavissimos quos- 
que odores se versare." cap. 5. p. 41. Hear, also, what Ware, in 
his '* Antiquities," says of his imitators, ** Atqui nonpossum non 
mirari viros aliquos hujus sajculi, alioqui graves et doctos, fig- 
menta ea Geraldi mundo iterum pro veris obtrusisse." Wliat 
would he say, had he lived to see more modern scribblers, 
such as Dempster, Abercromby, Mackenzie, *^ et hoc (/enus 
omnCy^ unredeemed by any of the above qualifications, (graves 
et doctos,) but with iguoranrce corresponding to their dishonest 
audacity, appropriating our history to their own private use; 
and to that end, not only denying us those advantages which 
even our enemies before allowed us, but like the asp that 
borrows its venom from the viper, adopting hatred against Ire- 
land, as a legitimate inheritance, and calculating on impunity 
from its prostration and decay. 

X Having spent five years in composing this fine work, the 
five books of his pretended history of Ireland came forth. In 



xxvi translator's preface. 

under the sanction, I admit, and auspicies of a wily 
monarch, who wanted such an instrument to verify 
the misstatements of '^ barbarism and impiety" with 
which he had himself previously loaded the Irish, and 
by virtue of which he had extorted that bull from the 
pope * conferring on him a right (how generous !) 

raptures with this new production of his genius, and unable to 
conceal his vanity, he repairs to Oxford, where, in presence of 
learned doctors and the assembled people, he read, after the 
example of the Greeks, his *' Topography" during three succes- 
sive days, giving to each book an entire day. To render the 
comedy more solemn, he treated the whole town splendidly for 
three days : the first was appropriated to the populace — the 
second to the doctors, professors, and principal scholars of the 
University — and lastly, on the third day he regailed the other 
students, with the soldiers and citizens of the town, ** A noble 
and brilliant action," says the author himself, "whereby the 
ancient custom of the poets has been renewed in England ! ! ! *' 
UssheVf Syllog. ed. par, ep. 49, p. 84, 85. 

** Than vanity there's nothing harder hearted ; 
For thoughtless of all sufferings unseen, 
Of all save those which touch upon the round 
Of the day's palpable doings, the vain man, 
And oftner still the volatile woman vain, 
Is busiest at heart with restless cares. 
Poor pains and paltry joys, that make within, 
Petty yet turbulent vicissitudes." 

* Adrian was himself an Englishman, and consequently the 
less indisposed to listen to this application. His Bull is given 
at full length by Cambrensis and by Bishop Burgess ; —see also 
Leland's History of Ireland, vol. i. 8. It granted the sove* 
reignty of Ireland to Henry, who was interested in its subjec- 
tion on account of the annoyance it afforded him, and the aid it 
sent his enemies, upon the condition of the payment of ** Peter's 



translator's preface. xxvii 

to the invasion of our country, and, thereby, for the 
first time,* A. D, 1156, subjecting us at once to the 
authority of a foreign Crown, and the spiritual sur- 
veillance of the Roman See and Pontiff? f — Who, I 

pence'* in Ireland, which had never before been paid there ; 
alledging the absurd claim, ** Hiberniara et oranes insula? qui- 
bus sol justitiae illuxit, et quee documeiita fidei Christianae acce- 
perunt ad jus B. Petri, non est dubium, pertinere." It then 
hypocritically exhorts hira to inculcate morality and to plant 
Christianity, as if we had it not in its splendour and purity 
already, in Ireland! *' Stude geutem illam bonis moiibus in- 
formare et ageis, tarn per te quam per alios quos ad hoc fide, 
verbo ac vit^ idoueos esse perspexeris, ut decoretur ibi Ecclesia, 
plantetur et crescat fidei Christianae religio." Alexander III. 
his successor, confirmed this Bull in 1173, and added insult to 
iniquity in representing the Irish as " barbarous," and " Chris- 
tiansonly in name." The Irish, it is true, spiritedly and nobly 
resented these intrusions to Vivian, Alexander's legate, at the 
synod of Waterford, held by Henry, 1177 ; but there it ended! 

* The Irish, who in the eighth century were known by the 
Dame of Scots, were the only divines who refused to dishonour 
their reason by submitting it implicitly to the dictates of autho' 
rity. Naturally subtle and sagacious, they applied their phi- 
losophy to the illustration of the truths and doctrines of religion, 
a method which was almost generally abhorred and exploded 
in all other nations. This subtlety and sagacity enabled them to 
comprehend with facility the dialectic art, and their profound 
knowledge of the Greek language contributed materially to the 
same end. This made them view with contempt the pitiful 
compendiums of theology extracted from the fathers, and 
which the unlearned ecclesiastics of otlier countries accepted as 
oracles, — Mosheim. 

t This ominous title — attached for more than a thousand 
years to the regal and imperial dignity from Numa, b. c. 789, 
to Gratiao, a. d. 375, who renounced its pagan oflfice and name« 



xxviii translator's preface. 



repeat, was the author of that imposture, every word 
of which its vile asserter, from compunction of con- 
science for the injustice rendered to an innocent and 
lieroic nation, was obhged subsequently to retract — 
though too late, alas ! to neutralize the poison which 
the baneful tenor of his combined subserviency to 
courtly favour and individual spite, — so opposite to 
the character of the true historian, — had but too 
successfully and extensively propagated ? Why, 
truly, it was a foreigner and a stranger — Gerald 
Barry — or Cambrensis, as he is generally called — 
from Cambria, the Latin for Wales,* his native 

as interfering with those of the high-priesl of our profession, 
Jesus Christ — but ill accords in its assumption of spiritual and 
temporal dominion, with the meek spirit of Christianity as- ori- 
ginally founded. ♦* My kingdom," says our Saviour, **is not 
of this world" — And when there arose a dispute among the 
apostles which should be accounted the greatest, he said, The 
kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they that 
exercise authority over them are called benefactors," — euergetcs* 
benefactor, was a favourite title of the Macedo-Grecian kings of 
Syria and Egypt, as we sometimes denominate our sovereigns the 
"fountain of mercy and honour," — '* but it shall not be so with 
you." ,Tohn xviii. 36 ; Luke xxii. 95. Tt is not known which of 
the popes first assumed the title, but Boniface III. — who, A. D. 
636, first arrogated to himself the unchristian one of " Uni- 
versal Bishop," which Gregory the Great, A. D. 590, had 
rejected with horror, calling himself in opposition thereto by 
the lowly designation of *♦ servant of the servants of God," 
seems the most \\ke\y.— Hales. 

* Ina, king of the West Saxons, married a second time, 
** Gaula," daughter of Cadwalladar, the last king of the Biitons, 
and in her right inherited Cambria, thenceforward called by 



TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXIX 

country — and yet his unfitness on that score was 
never questioned at the time, though possessing no 
other knowledge of the country than what could be 
gleaned from the sojourn of a few short months, 
during which he was domesticated at the castle as 
tutor to the king's son, where his sources of informa- 
tion were necessarily circumscribed — his ignorance 
of the native language being one great bar, aug- 
mented by the narrow limits of the English power 
within the island, amounting to no more than about 
one-third of its territorial extent — whilst even the 
scanty materials which such opportunities afforded 
were polluted and vitiated by the medium through 
which they passed, and the sinister influence which 
guided their expression ! 

But why dwell upon this instance of failure in 
a foreigner undertaking a province which he was 
not competent to discharge, when I should rather 
adduce those cases of splendid success in which 
foreigners have ventured as historians of other coun- 
tries, and won laurels in the attempt, as creditable 
to their labours, as they have been honourable to their 
subjects ? Merely to expose the illiberality, and 

her name " Wales," with Cornwall and tiie British crown. He 
was the first who was crowned king of the Anglo-Saxons and 
British conjointly, A. D. 1712 ; and the first measure of this 
wise prince, "by the advice and consent of all the bishops and 
chiefs, and the wise men and people of the whole kingdom," 
was, to unite the two nations by intermarriages as speedily as 
possible. 



XXX TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

make the action of their machinery, recoil upon 
those knaves themselves, who would uphold a princi- 
ple whilst it furthers their own objects — but no longer 
interested in the extension of the rule — scornfully 
reject it as an abortive bantling, though divested, 
perhaps, of the imbecility which disfigured their pre- 
cedent, nay, strengthened and adorned by the oppo- 
site graces. That I may not, however, altogether 
omit some instances of the description above adverted 
to, will it not suffice to mention the names of De 
Lome and Mills ; the former of whom, with a very 
superficial knowledge of the localities of England, 
has' given a dissertation on its constitution that has 
earned for him — from its natives not more than from 
the whole civilized world — as much honour as the sub- 
ject itself had excited admiration in the bosom of the 
author ; whilst the other, without ever having so 
much as set a foot in India, or within many thousand 
miles of its coast, has, notwithstanding, written a 
history of that country, the most comprehensive and 
satisfactory that has yet come from any pen. 

Coolly, therefore, and dispassionately to argue tlie 
point, I see no reason why a foreigner may not be as 
competent to enter the lists of literary adventure in 
the capacity of civil or local historian as any native — 
nay even more competent, if an unbiassed judgment, 
arising from a total disconnection with local preju- 
dices and parties, be considered a requisite ingredient 
for the exercise of such a trust. Or is literature with 



TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XXXI 

US alone, I would ask, such a corporate affair that 
none but the homeborn can intrude upon the mono- 
poly ? What will the sticklers for exclusion say, how- 
ever, when informed, that Dr.Villanueva in addition to 
the most varied and profound acquirements, embracing 
an intimacy with literature at large — has brought to 
the execution of this favourite subject an acquaintance 
with our island, obtained not more from the writings of 
the ancients to whom its existence was familiar, than 
by a long sojourn and joer^o/za/ residence amongst us, 
during which he has been occupied in digesting ma- 
terials for this work, and enriching his stores from 
our various libraries. But his principal and leading 
qualification, and what constitutes his peculiar fitness, 
in my mind, is his thorough mastership of the Hebrew 
language, of which the Phoenician was a dialect, and 
the affinity, of which with the Iberno- Celtic, or rather 
Iherno- Sanscrit, or ancient Irish, I may endeavour 
to elucidate in some future pages. This, then, is the 
lever with which, single-handed and unpreceded, he 
has encountered the difficulties of the Herculean 
combat ; and myself the venerable recesses of un- 
explored dates the basis of his plan, and the frag- 
ments of names and sacred inscriptions the fulcrum 
of his operations, he has removed that mountain of 
uncertainty and doubt which had so long obscured 
the horizon of our history, and — identified in spirit 
with the dignity of the cause — the cause as it is, of 
truth, of justice, and of letters — has triumphed in the 



XXXll TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

enjoyment of literary renown acquired in the investi- 
gation of our long disputed ancestry. * 

* ** Cujus modi antiquitatis ne ipse quidem populusRomanus 
nominis sui testem proi'erre [)oterat autorem." — Ussher, — The 
value of this remark, emanating from so distinguished an autho- 
rity, 1 may be disposed hereafter to consider in a more appro- 
priate place. Meanwhile I feel that I cannot more happily 
conclude this discourse, than by extracting a sentiment from a 
very spirited publication, which has lately shot up in Dublin, 
and which— had it no other claims on public patronage than the 
chivalry it has evinced in embarking upon an ocean, where so 
many miscarriages have, in that department, occurred, and in 
thereby inviting into existence two similar periodicals which 
have since followed its example — should, I conceive, on this 
single score alone, receive countenance and encouragement from 
all enlightened Irishmen. The sentence I so admire, as in 
unison with my own feelings, is in a note, as follows : — 

The object of the writer of this article has been, to attack 
modern ecclesiastical corruptions under ancient names and 
forms ; he has therefore selected the historical riiat5?rials or 
systems that suited his subject best, without the slightest in- 
tention of making an insidious or sectarian attack upon any 
description of believers, detesting as he does, from his soul, all 
sorts of polemical controversy, and convinced as he is, that its 
melancholy effects are at this day perceptible in the slavery 
of his country, which religious, or rather /y7e%2o?^s differences, 
have caused, by dividing Irishmen against each other, who, if 
united, v*ould be invincible ! Irish Monthly Magazine. — May, 
1832. 



TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL IRISH 
ACADEMY. 

Gentlemen, 

Impressed with a sense of deep obligation to 
your country, celebrated for hospitality as it most justly is — 
not less so on this score, than because of the more imme- 
diate, and to me delightfuly privilege of free access to the 
flourishing and magnificent libraries of your capital — a pri- 
vilege, I may add, which I value the more as deprived by 
adversity of my own little collection of manuscripts and 
books — I here respectfully tender to you, whose zeal for 
the elucidation of the " antiquities of Ireland" has been ever 
nobly conspicuous, this midnight effort of my pen, under- 
taken with a view to assist you in that task, and discharge, 
on my part, the offices, at once, of gratitude and of com- 
mendation. 

I might, indeed, give scope to my feelings in another 
form, and find materials, too, for the purpose, by drawing 
upon the fruits of a long literary life, no one moment of 
which, even when most disengaged, could be well called 
idle ; but, to your name, your reputation, and your assembly, 
foremost as they all stand in literary fame, I could conceive 
DO offering either more appropriate or more apposite, than 
this enterprising e?:cursion into the early periods of Trish 

D 



DEDICATION- 

history, to grope out, if happily to your satisfaction, from 
beneath the darkness of that beclouded age, the nations and 
the colonies whence you derive your origin. 

If, however, in the attempt, my success shall be found 
not adequate to my expectations, yet shall I console my- 
self with the hope that this little tract — on so interesting a 
topic as that of antiquity, which, as Quintilion well observed, 
whether local or universal, can never be too much studied, 
in regard to the incidents it may record, the characters it 
may develope, or the dates it may assign — may be found 
neither unwelcome nor unprofitable to the lovers of such 
pursuits ; and did I need any additional incitement to the 
luxury of this hope, I^would find it in that praise, which 
you, Gentlemen, who must have often felt the influence of 
praise yourselves, have, after a diligent perusal of this my 
work, been pleased to bestow upon my humble labors. 

I have now only to beg that you will accept ihe first fruits 
of that which you have before sanctioned with the high 
stamp of your approbation ; and, while taking leave of your 
body, with every feeling of regard, may I be permitted to 
enforce my prayer, that you will — in accordance with the 
spirit of your previous career — proceed laudably and cheer- 
fully, by your diligence and your research — as well in push- 
ing your own enquiries, as in patronising those of others— to 
exalt the standard of yonr academic institution, and encir- 
cle new wreaths on the renascent genius of lerne.* 

JoACHiMus Laurentius Villanueva. 



* For the satisfaction of the classical scholar I give the ori- 
ginal of this and next chapter in the appendix. — H. O'B. 



PHCENICIAN IRELAND. 



CHAP. I. 



Scope of the Work — Origin of first Inhabitants of Ireland 
uncertain — Way to trace it out — Difficulty of diving into 
early dates — Instance of this — Number and credibility of 
Irish historians — Foreign denominations of the old clans and 
localities of Ireland — Where to look for their etymology — 
The Author s acknowledgments as well to the more modern as 
the ancient writers upon Irish topics — Not always safe to 
follow them. 

The origin of the early inhabitants of Ireland is 
not only ancient but uncertain, and not easily recon- 
cileable to the exact rules of proof. But though we 
must not altogether reject what tradition records of 
them, still it strikes me that in our pursuit after 
truth, thfe more likely road for its attainment would 
be to trace out the origin of the names of the several 
septs and tribes which from time to time have visited 
those shores ; a course which, as in other instances, 
will be found, if I mistake not, in this too, most con- 
vincingly demonstrative of their lineage, their pro- 
geny, and the country whence they emigrated. I 

D 2 



36 

do not, however, mean to say that the conviction 
pi'oduced by such a search is in its nature so com- 
plete as that it may not even he superseded by 
other evidences; but this I assert, that it is not 
contemptuously to be trifled with by ignorance 
or guess-work, and that until something more 
authentic in the shape of argument be adduced 
it is entitled, at least, .to a respectful hearing. If we 
consider how difficult a thing it is, as Pliny* well 
observed, to clothe antiquity in a modern costume, 
to give fashion to novelty, splendor to decay, light 
to obscurity, beauty to deformity, and belief to 
doubt, the mere endeavor after the object, however 
short it may fall of success, must, from the nobleness 
of the intention, command respect for its author ; so 
shall it be my humble boast that having been blessed 
with the advantages of literary ease, I thought I 
could not employ it better than by embarking in 
some such design, conscious that whatever be my 
fortune, my motives at least will be appreciated, as 
purely wishing, amidst the crowd of contributors 
that press forward at the present day, to offer my 
mite also towards the general stock of the republic of 
letters. 

But as the remarks which I mean to submit respect- 

* Res ardua Tetustis novitatern dare, novis auctoritatem, ob- 
soletis nitorem, obscuris lucem, fastiditis gratiani, dubiis fidem ; 
eatim non assecutis voluisse, abunde pulchrum atqiie raagnifi- 
cum est. — Hist. Nat. Prc^f, 



37 

ing the geographical names of this island, are neither 
few in number^ nor inconsiderable in importance, 
involving, as they do, besides, an intimate acquaint- 
ance with the languages of the east and north, let it 
suffice for the present if, as a specimen, we but hint 
at the ancient names of our Irish clans, and the idol- 
atrous worship they indulged in, disregarding some 
sources of my own private conjectures, which, how- 
ever, I pledge myself shall be cheerfully supplied to 
any gentleman who may hereafter feel disposed to 
devote his patriotic pen to record the virtues 
and the heroism of this second Sparta. * In the 
mean time I flatter myself that I shall not be alto- 
gether v^thout reward in rendering those notes, of 
what value soever they be, interesting in their de- 
tails, as well to the admirers of what is amusing and 
light as to the more grave and austere student. 

It is greatly to be regretted that tho' no nation 
on the globe has been ever known to be more ob- 
servant of its antiquities,f nor niore studiously care- 

* Dr. Villanueva having consigned lo me those papers al- 
luded to in this sentence, the best use, I conceive, I can make 
of them is to bestow them upon the public in the shape of an 
appendix to the present volume. 

t This extraordinary regard which the Scoto-Milesians, like 
the Jews, paid to their history and the genealogy of their fami- 
lies, bespeaks a nation equally polished and educated. By a 
fundamental regulation of the state it was necessary to prove 
connection with the royal house of Milesius before you could 
either ascend the throne, assume the sovereignty of any of the 
provinces, or be appointed to any capacity, military or magis- 



38 

ful of every thing that could appertain to their 
chronology, the deeds of their ancestors, the boun- 
daries of their jurisdictions, and their laws, than this 
has been, there should still appear such a mist of 
darkness spread before our path when we would in- 
vestigate the origin of its primitive settlers. This 
obscurity is the more to be deplored from the cha- 
racter given by Camden of the Irish records, viz. 
that " compared to them the antiquity of all other 
nations appeared as novelty, and, as it were, the 
condition of incipient childhood."^ Deplore it, 
however, as we may, it has been occasioned, in no 
small degree, by the odd and outlandish designations 
given to the different tribes, as well as to many of 
the towns, cities, mountains, lakes, and rivers, w^hich- 
seem to have no affinity with the idiom of the 
natives, nay, to be utterly at variance with it ; so 

terial. The office of the antiquarians, instituted by Ollamli 
Fodla, as part of the triennial council of the celebrated Tara, 
and whose duty it was to watch over those genealogies and per- 
petuate the memory of their houses, was under the strictest 
control of scrutinizing commissioners appointed for that pur- 
pose, and the heaviest penalties were wont to be enforced 
against such as were found to prevaricate in the slightest par- 
ticular. He enacted, besides, that copies of all registries which 
upon such examination were found pure, should be inserted in 
the great registry called the *'Psalter of Tara;" and this practice 
and institution was continued and flourished up to the times of 
Christianity and long after. 

* Adeo et, proe illis, omnis omnium gentium antiquitas sit 
novitas et quod-ammodo infantia. — Camd. Brit.ed. Lotid.p.l2S. 



39 

much so, that Strabo's declaration* respecting the 
illiterately-barbarous and geographical terms of 
Spain's first inhabitants, and the places to which 
they alluded — which, by the way, proceeded from 
ignorance on his part of the languages they were 
derived from — has been repeated of the Irish, with 
literal precision, by OTlaherty,f a writer in other 
respects well-informed, and who has thrown no 
small light, too, upon the antiquities of his country. 
For instance, the names of our early progenitors, as 
enumerated by Ptolemy, he, forsooth, describes as 
no less outlandish in their sound than the names of 
the savages m some of the American fores ts,X He 

* Plura aiiteni Hispaniae populorum nomina apponere piget 
fugientem taediura injucundaj scriptionis : nisi forte aliciii volupe 
est audire Pletauros, Bardiietas, et Allotrigas et alia his 
deteriora obscurioraqtie nomina. — Grogr. lib. iii. These are 
Strabo's words ; but is it not strange that a writer who ac- 
knowledges the settlement of Phoenician colonists in Betica 
and Celtiberia, should not have recognized in these denomina- 
tions the Syriac sources whence they sprung? For the name, 
Pletauri, is compounded of the Phoenician words, pleich aur, 
meaning a host of inhabitants in the enjoyment of freedom; or 
of pleta ur, a host of inhabitants living in a valley. The name, 
Barduetce, is also Phoenician, from bardothe, residing in a wood 
or a grassy country. The Allotrigce were two Phoenician tribes 
established amongst the Celtiberi, whence their name alh-thri- 
iga, a divided people inhabiting an elevated country. But 
these and similar names of the ancient Spanish clans, ema- 
nating from Phoenician and Celtic sources, were any thing but 
agreeable to Grecian ears. 

t Ogyg, sen. Rer. Iber. Chron. p. 1, pag. IG. 

X In this rhodomantade of O'Flaherty he was much more 



40 



even adds, " We are no less ignorant, for the mosf 
part, of the import of the names Ausona,* or Ausoba, 

accurate than he intended, or, as the English say of our coun- 
trymen, *• he blundered himself into the right." Little did he 
know how near a connexion there existed between the two peo- 
ple whom he affected thus ridiculously to associate; and any 
one who attends to the position which I subjoin, independently 
of many others which could be brought in support of it, will 
admit the happiness of this unintentional coincidence. The 
Algankinese are the most influential and commanding people 
in the whole of North America. Their name in Irish indicates 
as much, viz. algan-kine, or kine-algan, a noble community^ 
corresponding to the Phoenician words al-gand-gens, which 
means the same tiling. The language of this people is the 
master language of the whole country, and what is truly re- 
markable, understood as Baron de Humboldt asserts, by all the 
Indian nations except two. What then are we to infer from this 
obvious affinity ? Why, undoubtedly, that a colony of that same 
peoplewho first inhabited Ireland, and assigned to its several lo- 
calities those characteristic names,which so disconcerted the har- 
mony of Mr. O' Flaherty's acoustic organs, had fixed themselves 
at an early date in what has been miscalled the ** new world." 

* Ausoba, or Ausona, is the ancient name of a river in the 
western region of Connaught near Nagnata or Gallina, mentioned 
by Ptolemy. Some think it to be the river Galvia [or rather 
the Suck] in Galway ; others Lough Corbes, [or rather Cor- 
rib]. The name is, however, almost universally supposed to 
mean '*a frith," from the old Britannic words, Auise aba, an 
** eruption of water,'* or the old Irish words, Ause obba, of the 
same import, (Collect, de reb. Heb. iii. p. 284). To my mind 
both names appear Phoenician. Ausoba, from auz ob, means 
a narrow bay. Ausona, from aus-on, a resounding river, ricb 
in water. In that part of Spain called Farsaconeses, the Hes- 
pania Citerior of the Romans, in the canton of the Ilergetes, 
between Manresa and Gerunda, beside the river Sambroca^ 
there stood an ancient city called Ausona, or Ansa, whicb 



41 

Daurona,* lernus^f Isammum^J Laberus,§ Macoli- 
cum^ll Ovoca/'^ &c. ; and to crown all, "Even the few 

gave name to the people called Ausetani, Being destroyed by 
the Arabians, after their invasion of that country, and restored to 
its original level, it was called Vicus Ausonoe, and by the natives, 
Yich de Osona, now merely Vich. There is, also, in the canton 
of the Asturas, a chain of mountains called Ausona ; in Canta- 
bria we find Mount Ausa ; in Boetica the city of Osuna ; in the 
country of the Vacedi are the towns Ausejo and Ausines; in Cel- 
tiberia the valley of Auso ; and other names of this kind, of Phoe- 
nician birth, which borrow their names from the adjacent rivers. 

* Daurona is derived from the Phcenician words duron, a 
wealthy people. Spain had an old city in the canton of the 
Celtiberians called Duron, and the ruins of which are to be 
seen to this day. But the name of the river Duro in Spain, as 
well as of the river Dour in the county Cork (or rather county 
Kerry, called now, the Mang,) in Ireland, comes from the 
Celtic word deir^ a river. 

t lernus, (now Kenmare river,) either from the Pheenician 
lerairif pious, religious, or from the Greek lerjie, corrupted, as 
we shall shew in a subsequent chapter, from the Phoenician 
Jherin, and intimating Ireland. 

X Isaraniura, (now St. John's Foreland,) from isanim, ancient, 
or Izanim, armed people. 

§ Laberiis, an ancient city in Ireland, recorded by Ptolemy, 
and called the capital of the Voluntii by Richard of Ciren- 
cester, (now Kildare,) was celebrated for the idolatrous super- 
stition of the Druids there pre-eminently cultivated. It is 
derived from the Phoenician words laliab era, a flame in a cave. 
Of the perpetual fire preserved by the sacrificing priests in the 
temples of their idols, or in caves, and here alluded to, we shall 
have occasion to speak more at large in the sequel. 

II Macolicum, (now Killmallock,) from macolim, the staffs or 
walking sticks of travellers ; as in Gen. xxxii. 10, ♦' For with 
my stalF I passed over this Jordan." Metaphorically applied 
to a nation on a journey. 

H Ovoca, the ancient name of a river and bay in the eastern 



42 

names/' he says, '' which may perhaps be understood' 
are in their meaning as vitiated and as corruptly 
perverted as the places themselves are decayed by 
time," Surely so distinguished a writer would not 
have so expressed himself had he but taken the 
trouble to compare such names with the source and 
origin whence they emanated. 

It may happen, indeed, in spite of us, and to our 
great detriment, I allow, that we may sometimes 
meet with obscure, nay, inexplicable, terms amongst 
the names given of old to some of our states, our 
cities, our rivers, or our mountains ; but this will be 
found, for the most part, to have occurred through 
the fault of historians and antiquarians mystifying 
words otherwise clear, and arbitrarily affixing to 
them whatever meaning may have been first sug- 
gested by either their caprice or their ignorance. 
How much more temperately, and at the same time 
more correctly, does that celebrated Irish historian, 
O'Connor, in his Rer. Iber. script, vet. 1, p. xlvi. 
seq. express himself on this head. '^ If we but com- 
pare," says he, '^ the Irish names handed down by 
Ptolemy, severally, with the British, and afterwards 
with the Spanish names which he has also preserved. 



section of Ireland, named by Ptolemy, and by some supposed 
to be the river Arklow, by others the Dublin Bay, is derived 
from the Phoenician voc, he emptied,' he evacuated ; whence the 
^rabic obecy or abic, a water-conduit, a pipe whereby water is 
conveyed into a bath. 



43 

we must needs acknowledge that by far the greater 
part of them are Spanish, bearing reference to times 
of the most distant date, and as such accord with 
those accounts which we have heard respecting the 
very early landing of the Phoenicians in this ' holy 
island.' "* This erudite writer accordingly steered 
clear of the opinion of those who, pinning their faith 
upon some would-be antiquarians, affirm that almost 
all the names of our ancient tribes and colonists cor- 
respond with the genius of the native idiom, and 
must therefore be derived therefrom. Other critics, 
with more chastened taste, and no small degree of 
merit, derive them in part from the Celtic, in part 
from the Cambrian, in part, too, from the Cambrian 
and the old Teutonic ; but neither with these do I 
agree in all particulars, seeing that they would fain 
grub out from other sources, and no matter at what 
pains or cost, what I am convinced in my soul are 
derived from the spirit of the Phoenician language, 
and from that only. 

Bulletus T conceive one of those who have been 
thus led astray, being, as has been already observed 
by a gentlemanf profoundly conversant in the anti- 
quities of this country, evidently at much pains in 
his commentaries upon the "Celtic Tongue" to 

* For the origin of this name see Preface, or chap, xxxiv. 
sub. fin. 

+ The Knglish translator of D. Mai let's work, ** De Sep,- 
tentrionalibus Anii(juit;tlil)ns," j»iefiice, piige 14. 



44 

wrest, if possible, from that sotirce, the names of 
most of our cities, towns, rivers, &c. Nor was- 
Lhuyd more successful in his collation of the Irish 
with the Cantabrian language, bearing, as they do, 
infinitely less analogy, one to the other, than the 
Irish and the Phoenician.* I pass over, without 
notice, the names of other writers, who have displayed 
a good deal of industry, and to very little profit, 
upon the geographical names of this island. 

The truth is these gentlemen, mth. all their learn- 
ing, have not sufficiently sifted the rubbish of -the 
Phoenician language, preserved and perpetuated 
in those names by the peasantry themselves, though 
knowing nothing, as we may suppose, of the authors 
of the contrivance ; and this observation I have had 
occasion to make before upon the geographical 
names of Spain, which, in my treatise upon the geo- 
graphy of that country, I have attempted to prove as 
emanating from the same source. And as it must 
be admitted on all hands that the marksman who 
aims at the object itself, however distant or elevated, 
is less likely to miss the line of direction, than he 
who would be content with grazing the circular 
superficies, therefore have I ventured to launch my 
vessel at once into the depths of the Phoenician 
fountains, there to explore, and mayhap with success. 



* See Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language, being 
a cullation of the Irish with the Punic. Dub. 1772. 



45 

the genuine and true solution of those complicated 
denominations. 

The neglect of this on the part of a writer* who 
has otherwise shewn consummate information on 
Irish affairs, leads him to suspect that the Phoenicians 
did only occasionally touch upon the Irish coasts for 
the purposes of commerce, both export and import ; 
and that in the course of time, Britain, by reason of 
its wealthy tinf mines,, holding out to them more 
commercial inducements, becanie, consequently, a 
more favorite rendezvous. Here he thinks it pro- 
bable that they built themselves temporary huts, in 
the capacity of purveyors for merchant's cargoes : 
and these abodes, he conceives, not to have lasted 
beyond the period of the third Punic war, when Car- 
thage J was destroyed, and Spain laid claim to by the 
Romans. 



* Vallancey, Collect, de Reb. Ibern. vol. iii. page 405, 406. 

t The abundance of this metal it was that gave rise to the 
name of Britain, being compounded of Bruit, ** tin," and Tan, 
** country ;" corresponding to '' Cassiterides," the mercantile 
name given by the Phoenicians to both Ireland and England. 

X The Carthagenians were a colony of the Phoenicians, who, 
on accountof domestic dissensions, had quit their native home, 
and built themselves a new city, which they called Carthada, 
or Carthage, which means as much, in contradistinction to 
Tyre, their former residence. The precise time of its founda- 
tion is unknown ; yet writers seem to agree that it was about 
869 years before the Christian era, or according to others, 72 
or 93 years before the foundation of Rome. The wars which 
this people maintained against the Romans — and which oritjin- 



46 

In the mean time I would have it distinctly un- 
derstood that I do not deny but that some of those 
names may have been of Irish (that is of Iberno- 
Celtic) origin. Nay, I readily admit the fact. 
This only I maintain, that most of those which are 
supposed to be compounded of the languages of the 



ated altogether in the jealousy and ambition of the latter — have 
been celebrated all over the world for the unexampled instances 
they display of heroic valour, on the one hand, of cold selfish- 
ness and calculating design, on the other; and the awful lesson 
held out on both sides of the inconstancy of human affairs, and 
the transient tenure of human magnificence, For upwards of 
two hundred and. forty years, those two nations had beheld with 
secret distrust each other's power, till at length a pretext 
occurred for removing the mask, and the declaration of hos- 
tilities was the inevitable consequence of their inbred hatred. 
The two first Punic wars had passed away, and the combatants 
on both sides — kept in check by the vigilance of their mutual 
operations — had covered themselves with glory and military 
immortality; but in the third, the levelling maxim of Cato, 
who saw that the peace of Italy could never be secured so long 
as the capital of Africa had a being, gave a dreadful impetus to 
the Roman perfidy and dishonour. During sevtnteeu days 
Carthage was in flames, and the soldiers were permitted to 
redeem from the fire whatever possessions they could lay hold 
of. But whilst others battened in the wasteful riot of (he scene, 
the philosophic Scipio, struck with melancholy at the sight, 
was heard to repeat two verses from Homer, which contained 
a prophecy concerning the fall of Troy. Being asked by the 
historian Polybius to what he then applied his prediction, " To 
my country,'' replied Scipio, *' for her too I dread the vicissi- 
tude of human affairs, lest in her turn she may exhibit another 
flaming Carthage'' This event happened about (he year of 
Rome GOG. 



47 

Celts and Ancient Britons, are to be traced to a 
much higher quarter, namely, the language of the 
Phoenicians, who in the very earliest days, that is 
much about the time of the entrance of the Israelites 
into the land of Canaan, penetrated as far, in the 
first instance, as the coasts of Africa and Spain, and 
thence — their ambition increasing with the success of 
their enterprises — they extended their researches even 
to the Irish shores. This, then, is my grand posi- 
tion, to estabhsh which I shall enlist all the energies 
of my mind and zeal — this the prize* to which I 
shall emulously press forward, to point out the 
riches of these Phoenician springs, and support that 
descent they so irresistibly suggest to us ; that it 
may become manifest to the world that they who 
neglect this scrutiny into the earliest days of the 
Phoenicians, are not qualified as historians to dis- 
cover the true origin of the first inhabitants of Ire- 
land ; still less so to vindicate their opinions on those 
heads, or to refute and overturn those of their adver- 
saries. 

From what has been here said the reader may, per- 
haps, imagine that the Phoenicians were, in my view, 
the primogenial inhabitants of this country — that, 
in fact, '* Phoenicians *' and '^natives" were, as re- 



* Palmurium — By iliis word the author would soem to 
allude to the Gieek^/ioiw/a;, a palm-tree; whence some people 
derive Phoenicia, as abounding therein. 



48 

garded Ireland, perfectly synonymous and eon* 
vertible terms.* To this point, however, my present 
disquisition I shall not direct. I am well aware of 
ail that has been written by some ancient authors 
about the aborigines, or giants, and their sanguinary 
wars with the Partholani.f I know, also, what has 
been said, in more recent times, of the last arrival 
of theGadelians, or Milesians, from the coast of Iberia, 
or Spain. Without either subscribing to, or reject- 
ing, all that the most diligent searchers into Irish 
antiquities affirm, as to this country having been 
first colonized from the countries more adjacent to 
it, and that it was not until after a long lapse of 
years the Phoenicians, the Gadelians, and the Tar-^ 



* It is more than probable that Ireland remained desert and 
uninhabited from the creation to the deluge. No history, not 
even that of Moses, offers any thing which can lead us to sup- 
pose, that before the universal deluge, men had discovered the 
secret of passing from one country to another that was sepa- 
rated by water. The ark, which was constructed by order of 
God himself, and which served to preserve man on the watery 
element, is the first vessel of which we have any knowledge. — 
McGeogliegan. 

t There are some old collections of charters, with many 
other monuments in writing, of the church of Cluan-Mac- 
Noisk, in Latin *' Cluanensis," cited by O'Flaherty in the 
dedicatory epistle of his Ogygia, which fix the arrival of the 
first colonies in Ireland, under Partholan, in the year of the 
world 11)69, three hundred and twelve years after the deluge; 
this colony was followed by the Nemedians, the Fomorians, 
the Firbolgs, and the Tuatha de Danians. — McGeoyhegan» 



49 

tesiens had come hither. I have upon these and other 
such topics read over all the authorities, as well 
modern as ancient, that lay within my grasp ; and 
whilst in justice and candor I am bound to acknow- 
ledge myself indebted to their labors on many and 
important particulars that passed in review before 
me, still did I reserve to myself the privilege, as 
sacred as it is undeniable, of forming my conclusions 
unbiassed by any authority. 

The chief advantage which humble diligence 
and diffident sagacity can derive from the labors 
of able antecedent writers is this, that from their 
priority in point of time they may be considered 
as our torch-bearers through the thick and dis- 
couraging darkness of ages in the distance ; yet 
should we not so fix our eyes upon them, as they 
thus precede us in the way, as to omit all attention 
on our part to the safety of our own footsteps. 
Some of them often chalk out to themselves a road 
through which it would be any thing but safe to 
follow them, and I have accordingly, guarding 
against such a risk, thought proper in many in- 
stances to take an unbeaten track and a new line of 
journey. But inasmuch as no one hath before me 
ever attempted this career, I may be allowed, I 
trust, to hope that — if I shall inadvertently have 
omitted* any thing in those commentaries which may 

* " Where ancient coins?" We acknowledge we huvo 

E 



50 



seem within the pro\dnce of an etymologist's duty — 
and in so vast a medley of names it is impossible but 
that some such oversight will occur — it will be in- 



none. But you yourself tell us, that it was perhaps a thousand 
years before our era, that the Phoenicians traded to Britain and 
Ireland, (agreeing pretty nearly with the calculations of our 
native writers,) and you elsewhere say, that the Phoenicians 
did not coin money till six hundred years later. Do you ex- 
pect our Phosnician ancestors should have had coins GOO years 
before they had learned how to make them? You also say 
elsewhere, that '* had the Phoenicians settled in any part of 
Britain or Ireland, their usual splendour would have attended 
them ; a few Phoenician coins," you add, " may perhaps be 
found in Britain and Ireland, a circumstance naturally to be 
expected from their trading there, but had there been any settle- 
ments, there would have been ruins and numerous coins struck 
at the settlement, as at all those in Spain." To all this, it is 
only necessary to reply, that there are no remains of Phoenician 
cities now to be found in Spain, and that the Punic coins and 
inscriptions found there are clearly of Carthaginian origin, and 
consequently cannot claim a very remote antiquity. Had the 
Irish asserted a descent from the Carthaginians, the want of 
such inscriptions and coins would be conclusive against them ; 
but as the learned Lord Ross (then Sir L. Parsons,) observes, 
no writer of note has ever said so, and we refer the reader to 
that distinguished nobleman's *' Defence of the Ancient His- 
tory of Ireland," for conclusive arguments on that point. Mr. 
Pinkerton finally shouts, " Where is the least trace of ancient 
art or science in your whole island?" We respond, they are 
exhibited abundantly in the numerous antiquities of gold, silver, 
and bronze, dug up every day in all parts of Ireland, and 
similar to the most ancient remains of the Greeks, Egyptians, 
and Phoenicians. Our gold crowns, collars, bracelets, anklets 
— our brazen swords, spears, and domestic vessels — our cinerary 
urns — our cairns with sepulchral chambers, which are not to 



51 

dulgently overlooked by the learned amongst my 
readers — and by them it is mor^e likely to be so over- 
looked knowing by experience^ as they do, the diffi- 
culties and the accidents to which such pursuits are 
liable — than by those who, receiving their information 
by hearsay from others, cannot appreciate the trouble 
which its acquisition may have cost, but think it as 
obvious to every one as it proved in their own in- 
stance. The variety and obsoleteness of those 
names have obliged many a searcher into their origin, 
after a w^earisome and fruitless pursuit, to give it 
over in disgust : they have then contented them- 
selves, as they fain would their readers, with vague 
guesses, or obscure intimations of more obscure con- 
jectures. Often have they assigned to them a mean- 
ing not only different from the true one, but even 
opposite thereto, and such as must at once so appear 
from the actual condition and circumstances of the 
inhabitants, the locality of cities, and several other 
divisional and characteristic denominations. Not that 
I would detract in the least from the merit of those 
worthy men who have bestowed their pains — and 
laudably so bestowed them — in illustrating the geo- 
graphy of this my adopted country : — no — I com- 
be paralelled in the British islos — and hstly, in those Cyclopean 
works, agreeing identically with those in tlic ishmds, and on 
tfie shores of the Mediterranean, !iiiiversally attributed to the 
Phoenicians. These are the evidences of tiie early coloniza- 
tion of Ireland. -i)tt6/i>i Penny Journal, 



52 

mend their efforts — they have pioneered for me a 
path. If I shall appear to have surpassed them in 
any thing, for this I am indebted to that greater 
degree of care which the opportunities of my leisure 
have enabled me to bestow upon the valuable labors 
of the great men of antiquity. These I peruse with 
incessant delight — these I court with undiminishing 
assiduity, to see if from the overflow of their genius 
I may be able to imbibe a single drop to irrigate, 
with the vapour of their fructifying stream, the ste- 
rile plants of my shallow capacity. For I am not one 
of those who leave no engine untried, no stone un- 
turned, to detect little blemishes in every writer 
amongst the ancients, and who vilify and distort the 
very noblest discoveries — the very grandest pro- 
ductions of human ingenuity, — singly and solely, and 
without any other assignable cause, than because 
that their own petty souls cannot relish nor com- 
prehend the innate moral beauty of any thing that 
is laudable. 



S3 



CHAP. II. 



Arrival of the Phoenicians together with the Iberians in Ire- 
land — Memorials of them in Fermoy — Leaba-Chaillde, its 
etymology — Origin of the words Peine and Penians — the 
Vascones. 



But to return to our subject. — To me it appears 
indisputable, as it is also the opinion of O'Connor, 
that those Phoenicians who had invaded Boetica, — and 
who in pursuance of, what seems to have been their 
original destination, the discovery of Mines,* had in 
conjunction with the Iberians or Celtiberians f pro- 



• Strabo tells us that they drew such quantities of gold and 
other commodities from this country as to make them pass a 
law declaring it death to discover its situation to strangers. 
The same was their motive for designating the British islands, 
Ireland and England, by tlie general name of Cassiterides, ex- 
pressive of their tin mines, withholding, however, their geo- 
graphical position for fear of intrusion upon their commerce. 

t The composition of (his name, Celtae and Iborus, might 
have been designed to distinguish the Celtes on that, from those 
on this, side the Pyrenees— i7»er in the old Celtic, signifying 
over^ as Gaul was divided into Cis and Trans Alpine, and 
Spain into Citerior and Ulterior. Lucan, however, would 
seem to imply that they were so denominated as a mixed gene- 



54 

ceeded thence onwards to Ireland, to work the iron 
and tin mines for which it was celebrated — were the 
earliest or amongst the earliest inhabitants of this 
island — at least the southern and western parts of it. 
I am convinced also, that the plain of Fermoy — called 
in the '' Annals of Innisfallen " the '' Plain of the 
Phoenicians" — was not so denominated without a just 
and good cause, seeing that in this district we meet 
with stone pillars erected after the Phoenician fashion, 
in plains and upon little hillocks, in great numbers, 
and of almost monstrous proportions. In this opinion, 
therefore, I unhesitatingly acquiesce, in'^preference to 
that of a writer already alluded to, who has asserted 
that there are no vestiges of either citadels or old 
temples to be found in Ireland at this day that could 
properly be attributed to the Phoenician era. Why, 
an exceedingly antique and truly wonderful monu- 
ment of this description, * though in ruins, is to be 



ration of Celtse and Iberi — *' profugique a gente vetusta Gal- 
lorum Celtae miscentes nomen Iberis." — Lib, 4. They were a 
brave and powerful people, and made strong head against the 
Romans and Carthaginians in their respective invasions — their 
country is now called Arragon. 

* 1 should be disposed to include amongst this class the 
small vaulted stone chambers called in Irish *' Teach Draoi,'* 
Druids house, some of which are to be seen on the coast of 
Kerry, at Cashil, at Dundrum, &c. evidently pertaining to a 
distant date, coeval, almost with the " round towers," but of a 
less noble — though still religious application. Nor should I 
omit to mention the sacraficial altars called *' Cromleach," that 



55 

seen in the village of Glanworth^ * barony of Fermoy, 
county of Cork, and province of Munster, consisting 
of two stone pillars, placed at right angles, in an 
oblong square. This laborious and stupendous piece 
of workmanship is deservedly ascribed to the Phoe- 
nicians, after their expulsion by Joshua, and was in- 
tended, no doubt, either for the worship of some 
idol, or to pepetuate the memory of some hero there 
interred. The Irish call this structure Leaba-chaillde, 
meaning thereby Callid's couch, for " leaba " in Irish 
signifies a couch or bed ; but who this Callid was, no 
one that I can discover, even soothsayer or prophet, 
hath ever asserted or dared to guess ; much less can it 
be ascertained from the interpretation of the populace 
who understand by the term the '' old hag's bed." In 
support however of this explanation, it is alledged that 



is, the flag of the Deity, being an immense flat stone, supported 
by pedestals, and sometimes, where the ground was sufficiently 
high, or where the weight of the incumbent stone rendered it too 
difficult to remove it, without any pedestals; nor the hypogae 
or antra Mithrse, being subterraneous vaults, of which the most 
astonishing yet discovered is that at " New Grange," corrupted 
from Grein-Uagh, i. e. cave of the sun or Mithras, in the county 
of Meath. This name is still preserved in Innis Mithra or 
Murra, otherwise " isle of sun," nine miles from Sligo, where 
is to be seen one of those clock greiiie, or clock mtiidhr, i. e. 
sun stones, being a conical pillar of stone placed on a pedestal 
surrounded by a wall to preserve it from profanation, and cor- 
responding to the 3Iakodce stone of the Gentoos, which is a 
corruption of the Irish words mah Dc, i. e. good God. 
* So called from the goodness of its soil. 



56 

all monuments similarly constructed are called the by 
Irish, Leapa na Feine, by which they conceive are 
meant the dormitaries or sleeping places of the Fe- 
nians, their celebrated militia of warriors. 

With all respect, however, to the distinguished in- 
dividuals who think thus^ and otherwise, I am inclined 
to imagine that Leaba-Chaillde is a Phoenician expres- 
sion, shghtly vitiated, and composed of the words 
lehab shallaid, a burned corpse, indicating the grave 
of some illustrious hero deceased and buried therein.* 
For lehab, in the Phoenician language, is a flame, 
whence zalehab, to burn, and shallaid is a corpse, or 
trunk of a dead body. Leopana too would seem to 
be derived from the Phoenician lepin or leponin, that 
is, swathings or liguments, or from leopin, linen or 
towels ; as much as to say, that, underneath was in- 
terred some Phoenician hero, and, according to the 
eastern custom, wrapt up in bandages. 

But what if it should appear that Feine was a name 
given not to any individual Phoenician, but in general 
to any chieftain or leader ? For in the Phoenician 
dialect fen or feineh, which means the gable or out- 
ward angle of a building, is applied metaphorically 
to the leader of a camp, the chiefs or captains, who 
are the strength of the people, as the corner stone or 

* In the Syriac version of the Gospel according to St. Mat- 
thew, (xiv. 12.) it is said of John the Baptist, wlio was put to 
death by Herod, *' his disciples took away his body, shailldah, 
and ^buried it." 



57 

gable is of a house.* Should this exposition be ad- 
mitted, — and I see no reason why it should not, — we 
need not then have recourse to Fenius the ancestor, 
according to an old Irish poemf of Breoganus who 
built Brigantia, now Braganza in Spain, and whose 
posterity are believed to have sailed thence into Ire- 
land, under the conduct and auspices of Heber and 
Heremon. I more incline to the opinion of those who 
would have the troops of the ancient Irish denomi- 
nated Fenians, not as though they were Phoenicians 
or descended from them, but because that they ex- 
hibited in their conduct the prowess and fortitude of 
the Ibero-Phoenicians, who had formerly settled in the 
country, and whose memory was preserved amongst 
the inhabitants by long and repeated traditions. For 
their soldiers, the Phoenii, who were equally called 
clannaj Baoisgene, or the sons of the Basgneans, that 
is the Vasconians, were never accounted of Phoeni- 
cian extraction, nor to have obtained that name from 
any leader called Baoisgenes, but from the Vasconse 
of Cantabria, whence we are informed that Milesius 
had emigrated to Ireland, of antient date, and with 



* So in Judges, xx. 2. ** and all the angles, (feinoth,) of 
the people met." And 1 Kings, xiv. 28. '* apply hither all 
the angles, gimoth of the people. 

t Coemanus in carmine : Canam hunadkus nan Goadhil. 
(Cano originem Gadeliorum ) 

X Clanna is an Irish word, signifying sons or decendants. 
So is baoisge also, and means a flash of light, and metapliori- 
cally a vain glorious, or boastful fellow. — See O'Connor. 



58 

an immense army.* Nor, indeed, should we omit 
noticing that those Fenii, that is, the celebrated old 
Irish militia, otherwise called feinne, might have 
been so denominated from the Irish word feine, sig- 
nifying a rustic or serf, as it is more than probable 
that this military corps were originally embodied 
from out of the class of the peasantry. To this point 
however, we shall again revert when speaking ex- 
pressly, and in detail, of the word Fene as one of the 
old clans of this country .f 



* See O'Connor, 

t The history of mankind would be one of the most pleasing 
studies in the universe, were it not often attended with the 
most humiliating, the most melancholy considerations. By 
studying human nature, we are led to consider in what manner 
we were formed by our all-wise Creator ; what we have made 
ourselves, in consequence of our disobedience to the divine law ; 
what we may be through Divine grace ; and then what we 
shall be in glory. Principles of this nature, should strike 
deep into our minds, when we consider the state of the heathen 
world, and, at the same time, reflect on the many blessings we 
enjoy. In vain do we pride ourselves in any of our endow- 
ments, in vain do we pretend to superior attainments; for if 
our affections are as much attached to earthly objects as those 
of the heathens, then we are much more inexcusable than 
they. We have all the truths of the gospel laid open to us, 
while they remain in a state of ignorance, worshipping the 
works of their own hands. Nay, worshipping even reptiles 
and insects, offering human sacrifices, shutting up their bowels 
of compassion, and trampling upon every moral obligation. 
This will naturally apply to what we are now going to relate, 
for the dignity of our holy religion never shines so bright, as 
when contrasted with heathen superstition, pagan idolatry, and 
every thing else that can dishonour our nature. — Ilurd. 



59 



CHAP. III. 



Ireland called by different names by the Phoenicians — Inis 
nabfiodha — Fiod Inis- -Criocaf rind — Ere — Fodhla,from the 
root of which latter term the Phoenicians called all Africa by 
the name of Phut— Banba — Fail—Elga, 

But my present design being to illustrate the 
names of the several localities of this country, as- 
serted already and maintained to have been of Phoeni- 
cian birth, I shall begin from its very first settlers, 
whose tribes it will be shewn have borrowed their 
names from that language ; and in this retrospective 
view the island itself claims our first regard, as 
known both to foreigners and to natives under va- 
rious appellatives. By the natives it was called Inis 
nab fiodha, by which they would intimate the ^' island 
of woods ;'* in which sense it was also called Inis 
fiod, the "island of timber " or trees, from fiod, timber, 
and inis, an island ; and again, crioca frindh, the 
final wood ; from croch, a boundary, and fridh, a 
wood.* It may have happened, indeed, that subsequent 

* I never saw one hundred contiguous acres in Ireland in 
which there were not evident signs that they were once wood, 
or, at least, very well wooded. Trees and the roots of trees, of 



60 

settlers, from ignorance of their true meaning, endea- 
voured to accommodate to the spiritof their own lan- 
guage these names and terms which they found ready 
to their hand, and sanctioned by the usage of 
their predecessors ; but as to their being originally 
Phoenician, that is indisputable and beyond the yos- 
sihility of doubt. Inis nab fiodha is compounded, 
as before observed, of the words, Inis, an island ; 
nab, of ; and fiod, a wood : Inis, again, is composed 
of the Phoenician words, In-is, meaning idolatrous 
inhabitants, of intrepidity and spirit — in or un being 
idolatry, and is, an inhabitant of manly spirit ; 
whilst the two latter words, nab-fiodah, are properly 
derived from the Phoenician naboa, an origin, and 
phiobd, those who dwelt in a vanquished land. So 
that Inis-nab-fiodah conveyed to the Phoenicians the 
following idea, viz. who dwelt originally in a van- 
quished land, or the posterity of those who sojourn- 
ed in a country which they took by conquest. 



the largest size, are dug up in all the bogs ; and in the culti- 
vated countries, the stumps of trees destroyed show that the 
destruction has not been of any ancient date : a vast number of 
Irish names for hills, mountains, valleys, and plains, have 
forests, woods, groves, or trees, for their signification. The 
greatest part of the kingdom now exhibits a naked, bleak, 
dreary view, for want of wood, which has been destroyed for 
a century past, with thoughtless prodigality, and still continues 
to be cut and wasted, as if it were not worth the preservation. 
— Young. 



61 

Fiod Inis, from the Phoenician words, fiot inis, 
that is,^idolatrous inhabitants who deprecate, for fiot 
means deprecation. 

Crioca frindh, from cri-ocal, cities, towns, or vil- 
lages abounding in victuals, provisions, or food ; and 
firin, the earth's produce — all which enunciate the 
productiveness of this country. 

I pass over to the vulgar, yet most ancient names 
given to Ireland, such as Ere Fodhla, and Banba, 
borrowed, as some historians aver, from three royal 
sisters, the last queens of the Tuatha Dedan, to 
which Fiech* the Scholiast adds two others. Fail and 
Elga. But it is not safe trusting to fabulous records 
wrapt up in darkness and unsubstantiated by proof ; 
more especially when we may otherwise account for 
the origin of these words by tracing them to the spi- 
rit of the Phoenician language — for Ere comes from 
araa or eree, a country, a climate, the inhabitants of 
one region. Fodhla from the words phut lah, or 
phot lah, a green land, which was formerly the 
proper appellation of Ireland, whence the Greeks 
used to call it smaragdon, the emerald,f from the 



* This was the celebrated convert and disciple of St. Patrick, 
afterwards promoted to the bishopric of Sletty, in the Queen's 
county, who flourished at the end of the fifth and beginning of 
the sixth century — distinguished by many literary productions, 
but best known by his poetical hymn, or panegyric upon his 
beloved instructor, the apostle of our forefathers. 

t "The Emerald" stone, in its purest state, is of a bright 



62 

greenness and luxuriant freshness of its soil, as ap- 
pears from the quotation '^ grandes viridi cum luce 
smaragdi." Unless you would rather suppose it to 
have been so denominated by the Phoenicians from 
its likeness to the country inhabited by Phut, the 
third son of Ham. Nor need we wonder if some of 
these should have so named this island, as they had 
formerly all Africa,* whose western parts, namely, 

and naturally polished surface, and of a pure and charming 
green, without any mixture of any other color : 

Fair as the glittering waters 

Thy emerald banks that lave. 
To me thy graceful daughters, 

Thy generous sons as brave. 
Oh ! there are hearts within thee 

Which know not shame or guile. 
And such proud homage win thee — 

My own green isle ! — Barton. 

* In ancient times, this country was considered as a third 
part of the terrestrial globe, and it may be properly called a 
peninsular ; for were it not for that small tract of laud running 
between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, it would actually 
be an island. It is remarkable, that in ancient times there 
were many christians here, ^vho had fair and flourishing 
churches, and here some of the most eminent christian fathers 
resided ; among these were Cyprian, bishop of Carthage ; 
Austin, bishop of Hippo ; and Tertullian, the famous apolo- 
gist. These African churches continued to flourish till about 
the middle of the seventh century, when the Arabians, under 
their caliphs, established Mahometanism in many parts, such as 
Egypt, Morocco, Algiers, &c. but at present, the greater 
number of the inhabitants are idolators. But here we find it 
impossible for us to inform the reader, from whence these 



63 

Mauritania Tingitana,* wherein lies Lybia, are to 
this day known by this name ; and the river that en- 
compasses those parts is still called Phuti, and the 
country all about Phutensis.f 

Banba would seem derived from the Phoenician 
words bana baha, cities built in an extensive region, 
or a country abounding in towns or cities. 

Fail from the Phoenician faila, or a husbandman, a 
serf, which comes from filah to plough, to harrow up 
the soil, whence also failhin, agriculture, tillage. 

Elga from the Phoenician helca, usage, privilege, 
designating probably the customs and ordinances of 
the primitive sages, which were the rule of conduct 
and the model of imitation to the Irish from the very 
beginning. 



modern idolaters derive their worship ; for it bears no manner 
of affinity to that of either the Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians; 
and there is so little of the ancient religion of the Ethiopians, 
Nigritians, &c. preserved in it, that it would prove a very dif- 
ficult task to trace from those remains the idolatry of their 
descendants. — Hurd. 

* So called from Tingis, now Tangier the capital, to distin- 
guish it from Numidia, which was called Mauritania Caesari- 
ensis after Claudius, who had reduced both kingdoms to the 
condition of Roman provinces. Mauritania is derived from 
Maur, i. e. a western, it being to the west of Carthage and 
Phoenicia. It is now the empire of Fez and Morocco. 

t Valeut. Schindl. Oderan. lex pent col. 1427. 



64 



CHAP. IV. 



Ogygia an ancient name for Ireland — Various opinions as to its 
etymology — Ogyges king of Thebes — Egypt called Ogygia — 
would seem a Phoenician name, relating to geography , or else 
indicating the bloody sacrifices of the Druids — Gia a valley 
of Jerusalem — Perpetual fire in Tophet — As also in the temple 
of Hercules at Gades, and in other idol temples — Origin of 
this rite — Sons burnt by their parents in honor of Moloch — 
Meaning of dragging children through fire — Customary with 
the ancients to offer human victims to idols. 

Plutarch and the old poets have given to Ireland 
the name of Ogygia^ to intimate thereby, as Camden 
and others after him have supposed, their thorough 
conviction of its extreme antiquity. This opinion they 
have formed, not more from the distant recesses of 
time which the Irish explore in their historical inves- 
tigations, than from the well known practice of the 
poets, giving — from Ogyges the most ancient king of 
Thebes — the name of Ogygia to any thing that is 
ancient. * Some would have Egypt on this account 

* More especially if such antiquity be involved in darkness 
and in doubt, as every thing relating to the origin of this king, 
the age in which he lived, and the duration of his reign, con- 
fessedly is. Ogygium id appellant poaetae, tanquam pervetus 



65 

called Ogygia, because that its inhabitants are re- 
corded to be the most ancient in the world, and 
the inventors, at the same time, of all or most of the 
sciences and arts which were subsequently borrowed 
and improved, to much advantage, by the several 
Asiatic and Grecian states.* 

For my part, though I would not altogether ex- 
plode the purport of this explanation, yet I should 
rather imagine Ogygia to be a Phoenician term, 
compounded of the words hog-igia, that is, " the sea 
girt isle," or hog-igiah, an inhabitant surrounded by 
the ocean. For the Phoenicians who had begun to 
frequent in distant voyages the uttermost part of 
either ocean, and who, as Strabo mentions, having 
proceeded even beyond the "pillarsf of Hercules," had 
circumnavigated the greater part of the habitable 
globe, finding the earth on every side encompassed 
by that w^atery expanse o'er whose bosom they were 
wafted to their enterprising destinations, very signi- 
ficantly gave the name of " hag" to tliat " watery ex- 



dixeris ab Ogyge vetustissimo. — Rhodoyomis, lib. 15, cap. 33. 
See Pint, lib de facia in orbe lunce. Slatyrius, an English 
{)oet, calls this island, Ogygia, in his " Pale Albione." 

* Cariib. Brit. fit. Hibernia. 

t Two lofty mountains named Calpe and Abyla, situate, 
one on the most southern extremity of Spain, t!ie other on 
the 0[)posite part of Africa, which Hercules is said to have 
erected, with the inscrij)tion of ne plus ultra, as if they had 
been the extreme points of the world. 

V 



66 

panse," intimating thereby the " sea circumference," 
not unhke what the Arabians designate it, " the 
circumambient sea." From hence arose the Greek 
word Ogen, the ancient name for the ocean amongst 
that people ; whence it is very probable, as many 
think, that Ireland was called Ogygia by Plutarch. 
It is worthy of note too, that hag, which is common 
as well to the Hebrews as the Phoenicians, occurs in 
scripture as a cosmographical term, used by Isaiah 
(xi. 22.) to express emphatically the circle of the 
earth, and by Solomon* to indicate the circle above 
the face of the abyss. f 

But the foregoing interpretation must not make 
us treat with contempt, nor fancy it a dream on the 
part of those who imagine that by the name of 
'^ Ogygia" allusion is made to the bloody victims which 
the Druids and other sacrificing priests, introduced 
by the Phoenicians into this country, used offer to their 
idols according to the Syriac custom in Ireland, no 
less than in Spain, and Gaul, and other nations of 
those denominated Gentiles. For in the Phoenician 
language, og-igiah means grief or sorrow for one 
burned, being compounded of og, he burned, and 
igiah, he made sorrowful. Whence the valley 
near Jerusalem wherein Tophet was situated, and in 
which fire was perpetually preserved for burning the 



* Proverbs viii. 27. 
f Bochart Geoff. i. 36. 



61 

oflPals and bones of the dead bodies therein sacrificed, 
— sons, by the way, whom their very parents used to 
immolate to the idol Moloch, dragging them with 
their own hands through two funeral pyles until death 
interfered in mercy to their excruciations — ^was called 
gia or gianon, from that horrifying abomination, 
By this too is confirmed the belief of the Phoenicians 
having made it a custom to preserve fire *^ inexfln^ 
guishahle" in the temples of their gods, as Silius as-f 
serts of the temple of Gades or Cades, which they 
had there erected and devoted to Hercules. * 

The " evil spirit," no cfoubt, the great enemy of the 
human species, and consequently the rival of Jehovah, 
in this the weakest quarter of the universal created 
scheme, had his priests also to preserve his fire in 
the temples of his idols, so as to appear not inferior 
to the people of Israel whom God had enjoined to 
feed the fire continually upon the altar. Flence the 
Greeks at Delphi and at Athens, used to preserve it 
both night and day ; and if ever, by any accident, it 
got extinguished, they used to light it again by the rays 
of the sun. The Pyrea of the Persians are also well 
known, in which they used not only to preserve the fire 
in an everlasting blaze, but even worship it as a divi- 



* Under this appellation was typified the sun, the twelve 
labors of the ** hero," being nothing more than a figurative repre- 
sentation of the annual course of that luminary through the 
twelve signs of the zodiac. — See Porp. Sch. lies. 

F 2 



68 

nity.* Strabo describes this pyratheia (xv) or fire- 
worship, as existing also in Capadocia.f The vestal 
virgins, never allowed the sacred fire to be ex- 
tinguished, it being a point of fearful and intense 
anxiety to the Romans, as they never failed to 
look upon its extinction as a sure presage of the 
overthrow of their city. This custom penetrated 
even to India, to the Brahmins themselves, who, we 
have the authority of Arumianus for saying, '^ used 
to guard the fire on hearths ever burning." But 
the superstition had its origin with the sacrificing 
priests of the Syrians, who were wont in honour of 
Moloch to drag their own children through heaps 
of fire. J 

This dragging amounted in some instances to an 
actual burning of children ; sometimes only to a 
scorching, produced by their being either conducted 



* Brison de regno Persarum. 

f This country — once so immersed in profligacy and vice as 
to share in the dishonor of the proverbial alliteration of the 
Greek, *' tria kappa kakista,^ the Cretans and the Cilicians being 
the other two of the trio, was notwithstanding, ennobled by 
being the birth place of Strabo, and of many martyrs and 
heroes, such as Gregory Nazoenzen, Gregory Nysson, and St. 
Basil, not forgetting the celebrated St. George, who had been 
a tribune of soldiers (colonel) under the emperor Dioclesian, 
and afterwards appointed patron of the order of the garter by 
Edward III, all of whom shed a lustre over the history of the 
place, and redeem its character though almost irreparable. 

\ Levit. xviii. 21. xx. 3, 4, 5. 



69 

or carried through a space betwixt two immense 
fires, by their comari or priests, or, according to their 
direction, by the parents themselves. Comar, or 
cumar, as also mar, meant, with the Chaldeans and 
Syrians, a gentile priest, a camillus, or minister of 
idols ; whence the Syriac word cumaruth, priesthood, 
and the rabinical cumari, a monk. But they were 
so denominated from the burning of victims, for with 
the people of the east camar means to burn. There 
are those, however, who think that the verb " to drag 
across," when used in this acceptation, is equivalent 
in import with the verb to ^^burn." Vossius is of 
opinion that when the scriptures make mention of 
this dragging, " burning" is not thereby implied, but 
merely " conducting" between two fires. Never- 
theless, he acknowledges that independently of this 
scorching, which prevailed in all families, no matter 
how affluent, or strangers to want, there was also a 
live-burning of their dearest pledges, and from the 
very flower of the people too, whereby, in the mad- 
ness of their superstition, they had cajoled themselves 
into a belief that their deities could be propitiated 
on occasions of great calami tes. 

That this was the opinion of the Phoenicians is 
evident from Porphyry.* We learn from Scripture, 



* The original name of this writer and philosopher, and 
greatest enemy, in both capacities, that Christianity ever ex- 
perienced, was Melek, which in the Syriac language signifies 



to 

ttiso^ that this worship had obtained throughout the 
land of Canaan* and Mediterranean Syria, which 
comprehended Phoenicia within its extensive boun- 
daries. For we read of the Israelites, in Psalm cv. 
being niixed with the Gentiles, and learning all their 
practices^ sacrificing, (izbechu) after their example^ 
their soiis and daughters to demons — that is to the 
graven images of Canaan. And respecting the 
Assyrians^ who were brought over to Samaria, the 
history of II. Kings, xvii, 31, records that those who 
were of Sepharvaim w^ere wont to burn their sons in 
honor of Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of 
Sepharvaim. J Quintus Curtius§ treats of the human 

** King," changed afterwards by Longinus, his preceptor, to 
Porphyrius, from porphura, the Greek for purple, which kings 
lisually wore. He was a native of Tyre, and died, I believe, \\\ 
Sicily, A.D. 304. 

* The first city founded in this celebrated country, known 
by the several names of Phoenicia, Palestine, Canaan, Israel, 
and Judea, and one literally flowing with milk and honev, was 
Hebron. 

t This, the first great monarchy established on the earthy 
took its name from Ashur, the second son of Shem, who 
founded it about the year 341 after the flood. It is at present 
called Curdiston, i. e. the country of the Curdes, from the 
Curdo mountains. 

I Supposed, by Sir Isaac Newton, to have b6ert the Sephara 
bf Ptolemy, and both to correspond with Pantibibla, where 
Zesuthrus deposited the records which he wrote before the 
flood. Pantibibla from pan, all, and hiblori, a book, is the 
Greek translation of Sephara, which conies from Sphar, a book 
dir record. 

§ The era of this historian, the romantic biographer of Alex- 



71 

victims offered by the Syrians. Diodorus Siculus,* 
(xx) and Tertullian,f (Advers. Gnost. c. vii.) record 
the same of their Carthaginian colonies, as does Por- 
phyry of the people of Rhodes ; J and says Paulas 
Fagius, in the Chaldee paraphrase of Leviticus^ 
" They used to dance in the interim whilst the boy 
was being burned in the blazing fire, striking their 
timbrels the while, to drown thereby the shrieks of 

ancler the Great, is not sufficiently determined — some making 
him cotemporavy witli Claudius ; others with Vespasian ; and 
others, again, with Augustus. 

* This was the writer of whom Vincent used to say, that 
** Every word of his was a sentence, and every sentence 
a triumph over error." He was called Siculus, as being 
born at Argyra, in Sicily ; and flourished about 44 years B.C. 

f This eloquent writer was originally a Pagan, and after his 
conversion became Bishop of Carthage, his native place, A. D^ 
196. He afterwards separated from the Catholic Church, and 
plunged into the errors of the Montonists. 

I This celebrated island, in the Carpathian sea, was so named 
from (Gesurat) Rhod, which in the Phoenician language means 
" snake," (island) corresponding to " Ophiusa,'' another name 
thereof, and which, in the Greek, signifies the very same thing 
— from ophis, a snake. Others derive it from rodon, a rose, 
for which, as well as snakes, the island was remarkable, and 
adduce, in confirmation, several Rhodian coins, exhibiting the 
sun, to which the island was sacred, on one side, and a rose on 
the other. But this was a mistake of the moderns not knowing 
the Phoenician origin of the word Rhod, and wresting it to the 
resemblance of their own rodon, corroborated somewhat by the 
accident of finding of a rose-bud of brass in laying the founda- 
tion of the ancient city of Lindus. The same objection, how- 
ever, equally applies to this, being only a little more antece* 
dent in point of time. 



72 

the imfortunate sufferer." He therefore, methinks. 
cannot be suspected of a wild-goose pursuit who, 
depending upon these authorities, conceives that, in 
the name of Ogygia, allusion is made either to the 
Syriac settlers in this country who came from that 
quarter of the land of Canaan, or to the Phoenician 
worshippers of Moloch, who, as we shall hereafter 
prove, introduced this custom of human sacrifices, 
along with other bloody ceremonies and practices, 
into their several colonies.* 



* The inhabitants of all nations in the universe believe in the 
necessity of an atonement for sin, before men can be justified 
by the Supreme Being, and although very unworthy notions 
have been formed concerning the existence of such an essential 
point in religion, yet it does not follow that the principle itself 
is false. Nay it rather proves the contrary, for there is some- 
thing in every man's conscience which points out to him that he 
has offended God, and that some attonement must be made, 
either by himself or by another. Now these heathens in India 
believe, that an attonement has been made for their sins, and 
they are to have the choice of enjoying the benefits of it, on two 
conditions : either they are to visit several holy cities at a Fast 
distance from each other, or secondly, they are declared to be 
absolved, in consequence of their repeating the names of their 
gods, twenty-four times every day. Such as visit the holy 
places, offer up a sacrifice ; and on the tail of the victim is 
written the name of the penitent, with the nature of his offence. 
This practice seems to have been universal in ancient times; it 
was so among the Greeks, the Romans, the Carthagenians and 
the Jews; and the prophet Isaiah alludes to it, when he says 
of Christ, "surely he hath born our griefs, and carried our 
sorrows." Isaiah liii. 4. — Hurd. 



73 



CHAP. V. 



The name Hibernia given to this island variously written by 
the Greeks and the Latins — Of Phoenician origin — Other 
names, Eri, Eire, Iris, Lug — The Irish called Erin, Erion, 
and Erigince — Ire Erion — Couri — Miluir — Guidhonod— All 
Phoenician names. 

But the most ancient name we meet with ever 
given to this island is Hibernia, the name by which 
Caesar, Pliny, Tacitus, Solinus, and others have 
designated it. Eustathius calls it Overnia and Ber- 
nia ; St. Patrick,* Hiberia and Hiberio. With the 
Greek writers it is louernia, louerne, and lerne, all 
derived from the Phoenician Iberin, meaning extre- 
mities, limits, or boundaries. From whence comes 
Iberne, the remotest habitation ; because, as Bo- 
chart, Geog. sacr. i. 39, well explains it, '' The an- 



* The family name of this venerable saint and celebrated 
apostle of the Irish was Siiccat, which, in Irish, signifies, 
** prosperons in battle." Fie v\as afterwards named Magonins, 
when ordained deacon, and, finally, Patricius, when conse- 
crated a bishop. He was by birth a North Brilon, born A.D. 
37*2, near the village of Nempthur, or Banavan, in Tabernia, 
now Dumbarton, and brought a captive, at an early age, into 
Ireland, in one of tliose predatory excursions which onr an- 



74 

cients knew nothing beyond Ireland towards the ocean 
except the vast sea." Whence he infers that the Phoe- 
nicians^ distinguished as they were for pushing their 
voyages to the remotest extremities of the globe, 
must have been thoroughly acquainted with the 
locality of this country. 

For I cannot at all bring myself to coincide in 
opinion with those, who imagine that this name had 

cestors indulged in after the withdrawal of the Romans from 
Britain. Piech thus alludes to these circumstances : — 
*' Patrick was born at Nempthur, 

As related in stories ; 

A youth of sixteen years, 

When carried into captivity — 

Succat was his name among his own tribes : 

Who his father was be it known — 

He was son of Calphurnius and Otide, 

Grandson of the Deacon Odesse." 
This Odesse is, by St. Patrick himself, called Potitus, as was 
Otide, otherwise called Conchessa, being sister to St. Martin, 
Bishop of Tours. — The clergy at this period had not been en- 
joined celibacy. He died on the 17th of March, A. D. 493, 
at the great age of 120 years, and was buried at Down, in the 
same tomb with St. Bridget and St. Columba, according to the 
Latin distich — 

** In burgo Duno tumulo tumulantur in uno 

Brigida, Patricius, et Columba pius." 
Thus translated : 
** In Down three saints one tomb do fill, 

Bridget, Patrick, and Columb Kill." 
His long disuse of the Latin language during a continued re- 
sidence of sixty years in this island, combined with the igno- 
rance of copyists, will account for the inaccuracy of the names 
♦* Hiberia" and '* Hiberio." 



75 

originated from the Spanish Iberi, who had once 
sent hither a colony. No ; I should rather trace it 
even to the Irish word, lar, i. e. west, from its 
western position in reference to England ; a view in 
which I am sanctioned by Camden's approbation, on 
the ground that Spain had been called Hesperia 
from its western locality, and a certain promontory 
in Afi'ica the Hesperian Cape, from its locality in 
like manner.* Vallancey thinks that the Persians, 
who had at a very early period established them- 
selves in this island, gave it this name in allusion to 
the district of Iran in their native country.f Cam- 
den's view of the matter is still further supported by 
the inference drawn from the Greek idiom by Cor- 
mac McCuillinan, Bishop of Cashel, and King of 
Munster, in the beginning of the tenth century, J viz. 
that Hibernia may be considered a Greek compound, 
consisting of the two words, Hiberse and Nyos, the 
former of which signifies the tvest, and the latter an 
island ; whilst Bochart's explanation gains credence 
by the fact of the Phoenicians being really Iberin, or 
Oberin, that is, passers over the sea, in which ac- 



* From their proximity to the north in like manner, which 
in the Phoenician language is called garbaia, the following 
Spanish towns have been denominated :— Garbi, Garbin, Gar- 
belos, Garbayuela; as also Algarbi, a district now in the pos- 
session of Portugal. 

t Observation on the primitive inhabitants of Great Britain. 

X VaraeuR de Scrij)t. Ibernia, p. 6. 



76 

ceptation we meet with the expression in Psalm viii. 8, 
where it is said, '^ Who traverse (ober) the paths of 
the sea." 

The natives have indifferently called it Eri, or 
Eire, and not so correctly by the name of Erin ; 
whence perhaps the term Iris, which we find in 
Diodorus Siculus. To Eri and Eire we may also 
apply our previous conjectures on the etymology of 
Ere. This I prefer to the assertion of certain per- 
sons who would have this island called lerna and 
lerne, from the Greek Hieron, signifying '^ sacred."* 
I must not omit to add that from Eri, or Eire, the 
Irish have been called Erigenae,f or sons of Erin, a 
name by which John, the illustrious Irish historian J 
of the ninth century, is universally and emphatically 
denominated. Varceus de Scrip. Iber. i. 5. 

Another ancient name of Ireland, lu Erion, the 
learned generally take to imply^ ^^ the isle of the 
earth-born, or offspring of the very earth ;" for iu, 
au,§ and eu, meant '' water," or '' island ;" and these 



* Ogyg. 1,21. 

f From Era, earth, and Ginomai, to be born. 

X And Chaplain to Alfred the Great, who, in the preface 
to his translation of St. Gregory's Pastoral into the Saxon lan- 
guage, was not ashamed to acknowledge his gratitude to Ire- 
land, that had given him his education, and additionally im- 
proved it by the superintending assistance of this distinguished 
ecclesiastic. 

§ Aa and ea, i. e. Eau, i. e. Aqua, signify water, and h may 
be here added, that the termination of names of places in a, 



77 

were sometimes written more fully, aug, or ag, like 
the Teutonic oege and odghe, from the Greek auge, 
splendor, an obvious property of water. Whence, 
also, another name. Lug, from luge, light. Era,* 
too, was used emphatically, to signify the land of 
ancient Greece, as Er was that of Britain. Where- 
fore the Irish at this day call themselves Erin, or 
Erion ; and from this Scotus obtained the name of 
Erigina, or of Eriniauch, compounded, as they state, 
of er, the earth, and geni, or eni, to be bom of In 
confirmation of this etymology, they tell us that that 
nation, before the arrival of the Brigantes or Phry- 
gians, had possession of Gaul, Spain, and Britain ; 
for to this day the Vascones and Cantabrians in a 
great degree make use of the ancient language of 
the Erii.f But the first men got the name, in the 
Greek and Latin languages respectively, of Autok- 
thones and Terrigenae, that is, '^ sons of the earth," 
and " earth-born," from the circumstance of their 
dwelling underground in caves, like rabbits ; J which 



aa, or ey, in the old Teutonic, signify places surrounded with 
water ; nor ought the word sea, itself, in this case to be forgotten. 

* It was in particular the name of a mountain in Messenia, 
the rendezvous of Aristomenes and his devoted band, where, 
after many marvellous feats of almost incredible heroism, — in 
which the women no less than the men had share, — he was at 
last betrayed and obliged to vacate his post. 

t Edward Lhuid's Archiologia. 

X Strabo says that the Scythians used lo seek refuge from 
the cold in caverns. Hence the name Troglodytes, from tro- 
glos, a cave. 



78 



gave occasion to Gildas to say, ^^From their little 
caverns crept forth the Irish like so many swarthy, 
sooty little worms."* This has led some to suppose 
that the Com-i, Miluir, and Guidhonod, as they are 
called, who are generally ascribed to a more ancient 
date, and who passed their lives in caves and forests, 
were no other than those self-same original Erii ; 
and wishing to derive these names from the Irish 
language, they say that Cour, in the singular num^ 
ber, means a giant, abbreviated from Cau ur, " a 
cave man," such as Cacus and the Cyclopsf are 



* Prorepsere e cavernulis suisfuscivermiculi Ibeini. — Guild. 

Dr. Smollet, in his ironical manner, calls the inhabitants of 
Lapland the fag end of the human creation, which illiberal and 
invidious expression seems to arise from not considering that 
these people have the same rational faculties as others, and 
only vrant the means to improve themselves, Novr under such 
circumstances let us seriously ask, v^'hether these people are 
the objects of laughter and ridicule? Are they not rather 
objects of pity, especially when we consider that our ancestors 
were once as ignorant as they, and probably more barbarous. 
Nay, barbarity is not so much as imputed to the Laplanders, 
even by those who take a savage pleasure in ridiculing them 
for what is not in their power to prevent. That they are slaves 
to superstition is not denied, but that superstition never leads 
to any thing of a cruel or barbarous nature. Secure in their 
simple huts, they live without giving offence to each other ; 
and if they have but little knowledge, they have but few sins 
to account for. — Hurd. 

t The Cyclops are represented to have had but one eye in 
the middle of their forehead, the origin of their name, from 
Kuklos, a circle, and Ops, an eye ; but in reality were so called 
from their custom of wearing small steel bucklers over tbejr 



79 

reported to have been ; Coures, meaning a giantess. 
Milur is a wild man, or a silvestrian, and there- 
fore a hunter, just as Milgi, is a hound. For with 
the Britons, Mil, meant a wild beast, as with the 
Greeks did Melon, cattle ; and to this they think 
that the Clanna Miledh of the Irish, from clann, or 
clain, an offspring, and miledh, a soldier or war- 
rior, bears reference. Guidhonod they conceive to 
arise from guidhon, a witch. 

But since the Phoenician language exhibits the 
origin of these names, I should, for my part, as- 
cribe them to that source in preference. For in- 
stance, lu Erion would appear derived from the 
Phoenician I-Erain, an inhabitable island, or one 
abounding in inhabitants. Lug, from log, which 
with the Arabians is logag, the deep, as much as to 
say, the island in the deep, or surrounded therewith. 
Erigena, which they would have a-kin to the Irish 
word Ereimane, or rather Erionnach, meaning Ire- 
land and Irishmen, I would venture to derive from 
the Phoenician word Erigain, foreigners ; and Erion- 
nach itself from Era-onag, that is, a land or country 
abounding in delicacies, for onag, in the Syriac 



faces, having- but a single aperture in the middle, which corre- 
sponded exactly with the form of an eye. This practice they 
had recourse to in their capacity of miners, or in their profession 
of archery, as we find a Scythian nation, too, who excelled in 
the same art, call themselves Arimaspi, from Ariraa, one, and 
spia, an eye, in allusion to the habit of closing one eye to take 
the better aim, by collecting the visual rays to one focus. 



80 

dialect, implies a delicacy or luxurious repast. The 
Couri were so from the Phoenician word curin, 
fishes, a metaphorical designation for expert and 
dexterous mariners ; or from cura, a fire-hearth, as 
if worshippers of fire. Miluyr, from the Phoenician 
Mila-ur, an assembly of fire-worshippers, or a mul- 
titude of inhabitants living in a valley, for ur signi- 
fies indifferently either one or the other, a fire or a 
valley. Guidhonod, from the words gui-donoth, a 
nation or people with leaders, gui,* meaning a na- 
tion, and don, he governed. Unless you would 
rather derive dhonad from donoth, that is, the chil- 
dren of Dan, that city of Phoenicia, at the foot of 
Mount Libanus, where its inhabitants had erected 
a graven image, and Jeroboam had raised the golden 
calf, as colonics, particularly from distant countries, 
generally retain the name of their parent or mother 
stock. 

Again, the name of Iris, by which this county is 
distinguished in Diodorus Siculus,f and from which 



* From Phoenician gui sprung the old Trish word ui, or Ay, 
signifying a tribe or clan. Ui is also the genitive case of the 
word ua, a son, oftspring, posterity, the plural of which is i. 
From hy, a tract, or district, many Irish localities have ob- 
tained their names : sucli as Hy- Anlan, Hy-Ara, Hy-Talgia, 
otherwise called Hi-Faillia, and primitively Hy-Bhealgia, 
meaning a barony of worshippers of Baal, and several others 
almost beyond reckoning. — See Collect, de Reb. Ibern, vol. iii. 
p. 362. 

t Diodor. Siciil. lib. v. 



81 

its inhabitants have been called Irenses, or Iri, 
although I admit it may be derived from the old 
Irish word Iris^ which signifies brass or copper, as 
it does, also, invention or investigation, as well as 
friend and friendly fellowship, and, finally, religion, 
law, era, and chronicle, yet it is more likely that 
Orpheus of Crotone, Aristotle, and other Greek 
writers who have used Iris as a name for Ire- 
land, have done so not from the language of the 
natives, which to them was unknown, but from the 
Hebrew word Iris, he possessed or obtained by in- 
heritance ; or from Irisa, possession by inheritance, 
which words, changing the s into t, the Phoenicians 
used to pronounce as Irith, and Iritha. From this 
name, variously inflected into Ire, Eri, and Eire, 
with the addition of the English word land, was 
formed the modern and now generally adopted 
name, Ireland. But Irlandia and Irlandi, as Latin 
for Ireland* and Irishmen, is evidently a barbarism. 

* The interest which I take in every thing that concerns 
Ireland, makes me often sigh for the additional misfortune 
which the general ignorance of its hislory produces, and has 
long since inspired me with a desire of remedying that evil. — ' 
Mac Geoghegan. 

While many who have left thee. 

Seem to forget thy name, 
Distance hath not bereft me 

Of its endearing claim : 
Afar from ihee sojourning, 

Whither I sigh or smile, 
I call thee still, *' Ma vournecn*' 
My own green isle I — Barton. 
G 



82 



CHAP. VI. 



Ancient inhabitants of Ireland — The Partholani — Various 
opinions as to the etimolocjij of this word — The aborigines or 
giants, why so called — TJieir bloody wars with the Partho- 
lani the first tribe of Phoenicians who landed on the coast of 
Ireland — Origin of their ancient name Formorogh — The Ne- 
methoe, when they seized upon I eland — Where they settled — 
Etymology of their name — Why called Momce or Nomce. 

Having put the reader in possession of the several 
names given to Ireland, I come in the next place to 
its ancient inhabitants, whose names I at once recog- 
nise as Phoenician, or, at least, deducible from that 
fountain. The first that present themselves are the 
Partholani, undoubtedly the very earliest people in 
this island, of v^hose colonies — w^hich are supposed to 
have preceded the arrival of the Belgians — we can- 
not at this day discover a single vestige any more 
than we can of the Nemethae. Some suppose that 
they were some of the aboriginal Britons, and that 
they arrived in Ireland much about the same time 
as the Nemethae, that is, as they say, in the sixth 
century before the birth of Christ. Others derive 
their name from the Irish words bhoeruys-lan-ui, as 



83 



much as to say, the shepherds or herdsmen beyond 
the great ocean, and therefore suppose that they 
must have been the first persons who introduced 
cattle into this island.* 

Others there are who think them so called from 
Partholanus, the son of Sera, of the race of Ja- 
phet, whom they assert to have first arrived in 
Ireland, having set out from Scythia, or as others 
say, from Graeco-Scythia, or iviygdonia, a mari- 
time district of Macedonia, about three hundred 
or more years after the deluge, Vv^ith his sons San- 
guin, Saban, and Ruturugus, their armies and colo- 
nies ; and they tell us furthermore that he put in 
at Inversgene in Kerry, and took up his residence in 
Ulster at Inis Samer in the river Erne, an island 
called from his castle, from whence also the river 
was called Samarius. f Some writers add that those 
colonists found before them on their arrival other 
inhabitants whose origin was not known, and who 
were therefore denominated by the Latins as abori- 
gines, by the Greeks as Giants ; intimating equally 
the natives of the soil, or the true born children 
of the country. With these gigantic aborigines 
they tell us that the Partholani waged an in- 
cessant and bloody course of warfare, and with 
such acrimony on both sides, that both were almost 

* See Collect, de Reb. I hern. vol. iii. p. 404. 
■\ See O'Flaherty, cap. ii. p. 3. 

g2 



84 

extinguished under one general massacre. These, and 
other such things equally involved in fable, are told 
of the Partholani amidst the darkness of an unknown 
age. As I take it, the Partholani are the most an- 
cient, or, if you prefer, the primitive tribes of the 
Phcenicians who landed on the Irish coasts, and 
from them was given the name of Partulin to all 
such as had transported themselves from their native 
country. The Syriac word para, signifies to sprout 
or shoot — tulin, number or plurality, from tul, 
translation. But para tneans also he grew or en- 
creased, so that partulin would then mean a body of 
emigrants who encreased and multiplied. 

This race the ancient Irish poets and historians 
call Fomhoraigh, Formhoraice, and Formoragh ; by 
which word, they think, is meant pirates, or transma- 
rine robbers, infesting those coasts in prejudice to, 
and defiance of, the ancient colonies ; and they assert 
that they were decended from Ham or Midacritus * 
from Africa, with the exception of the first Formorii, 
to whom they assign neither other sect nor origin, f 

* Pliny (vii. v. 6.) tells us that Midacritus was the first who 
had imported lead from the island of Cassiterides. But later 
critics assure us that this was no other than Melicartus, or the 
Phoenician Hercules, mentioned in Sanchoniathon, to whom 
the Phcenicians ascribed so many voyages to the west. Mi- 
dacritus is in itself a Greek name, and we know that the Greeks 
were in total ignorance of the locality of the Cassiterides. — See 
Bochart. 

t O 'Flaherty, i. p. 9. 



85 

Some suppose them to have been Celts ; others, 
more correctly, Phoenicians, which the name itself 
would seem to indicate.* For, in their language, 
famori, means the lord of an extreme land, that is 
of an island, which they had supposed to be the 
utmost habitation of the globe, as we have observed 
conformably to the opinion of Bochart. The Ne- 
methae or Nemetii, were, as some say, the posterity 
of Nemethus,f who, they maintain, planted a second 
colony in Ireland thirty years after the death of 
Partholanus, when it had now become almost a desert 
and been overrun with forests. In his' time were 
built the fortifications of Rath Kinnech in Hy-Ni- 
ellan, in Lagenia, and Rath Kimbaith in Hy-Gem- 
nia, a district of Dalaradia, where the plains, being 
cleared from brushwood and trees, admitted the 
genial influence of the sun's irradiation J Some 
writers add, that on the arrival of the Boelgge on the 



* It is said, that Neivy or Nemedius, great grand nephew 
of Partholan, having learned by some means the disasters and 
tragical end of his relations in Ireland, and wishing, as heir of 
Partholan, to succeed him in the possession of that island, em- 
barked thirty-four transport vessels, carrying each thirty per- 
sons, without counting Macha, his wife, and his four sons, Starn, 
Janbaneal, Annin and Feargus, who followed his fortune in 
the expedition. Macha died after twelve years, and was in 
terred in the place since called from her name, Ardmach. — 
Mac Geoghegan. 

t SeeCollcct.de Reb. Ibern. vol, iii. p. 352. 

I O'Flaherty, p. iii. cap. (3. 



86 



coast of Heremonia, which is now the province of 
Leinster, several of the Nemethae retired backwards 
into the northern districts of the island. 

There are some who assign to the Nemethae a 
different origin, and would call them Momae or 
Nomae, deriving the same from the Celtic words 
Mou or Nou, land or country, and Mam or Mae, 
maternal, so that Nemethae would mean the original 
people, * or aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland. 

But expunging altogether the fables of the old 
poets, to me it appears incontrovertible that the 
name of Nemethae was given by the Phoenicians to 
their tribes, as equivalent with pleasant, cheerful, or 
agreeable. For in their language nemoth signifies all 
these, from the root, neem, delightful, amiable, respect- 
able. This tribe was furthermore called Momas by 
the Phoenicians, as having cemented their treaty by an 
oath,f (noma) which furthermore proves the veracity 



* Collect, de Reb. Ibern. vol. iii. p. 400. 

+ The Ostiac takes his oath upon a bear's skin, spread upon 
the ground, whereon are laid a hatchet, a knife, and a piece of 
bread, which is tendered to him. Before he eats it, he declares 
all he knows relating to the matter in question, and confirms 
the truth of his evidence by this solemn imprecation ; *' May 
this bear tear me to pieces, this bit of bread choak me, this 
knife be my death, and this hatchet sever my head from my 
body, if I do not speak the truth." In dubious cases they pre- 
sent themselves before an idol, and pronounce the same oath 
with this additional circumstance, that he who takes the oath, 
cuts oft' a piece of the idol's nose with his knife, saying, " If I 



87 

and the fidelity of the people, nom signifying true, 
derived from naum, a discourse or language. 



forswear myself, may this knife cut off ray own nose in the 
same manner, &c." All those nations, who inhabited the land 
afterwards called Palestine, were descended from Canaan the 
son of Ham ; for although we find many subdivisions among 
them, under as many different names, yet the general one was 
that of Canaanites : and here it is necessary that we should an- 
swer a deistical objection made by Lord Bolingbroke, and 
some others, against a passage in the sacred scripture ; and this 
we the more readily comply with, because many weak, though 
otherwise well-meaning persons, have been led into an error by 
those designing men. 

In Genesis ix. we read of Noah having got drunk with the 
fruit of the vine, and that while he was in a state of intoxication 
in his tent. Ham, his youngest son, came in and beheld his na- 
kedness ; but Shem and Japhet went backwards and covered 
him. When Neah awoke, and found how different the beha- 
viour of his sons had been, he said (verse 35) *' Cursed be 
Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." 
Now Canaan is no where mentioned as the aggressor; but 
there cannot remain the least doubt, but he was, at that time, 
along with his father, and like Ham, mocked at the aged pa- 
triarch ; a crime attended with many aggravated circumstances. 

But the deistical objection is this, '* It was inconsistent, say 
they, with the goodness of God, to inflict a curse on a nation 
in latter ages for the guilt of an ancestor. Now let every unpre- 
judiced reader attend to the passage, and then he will find that 
the whole was a prediction, and not an imjrrecation. Noah, 
by the spirit of prophecy, foreseeing that the descendants of his 
son Ham, would commit the grossest idolatries, oidy foretold 
what would happen to them in latter times. — Uurd. 



88 



CHAP. VII. 



The name of the Momonii supposed of Celtic origin — Various 
opinions on this head — Mumham a southern district of Ire- 
land — The meaning of Mammoii — Different names of the 
idol Ops — The Momonii tribes of the Phoenicians — Their 
name Phoenician — Origin of the word Mammanagh — 
Mammuna the sacrificing priest in the temples of the Phce- 
nicians — The Mammacocha of the Peruvians. 

I come now to the Momonii, the ancient inha- 
bitants of the province of Munster, divided, we may 
observe, according to their several settlements, into 
Desmond or southern Momonia, Thomond or north- 
ern Momonia, and Ormond eastern Momonia.* The 
name of Momonians is agreed on all hands, as we 
have already said, to have been composed of the 
Celtic or Irish words mou-man or pou-man, a mother 
or maternal country. Mou, and pou were the 
same as magus and pagus, mais and pais ; f so that 
momon or mouman would signify the mother coun- 
try of the aborigines : this part of Ireland being 
chiefly inhabited by the Nemethae, who betook them- 

* Th. Burgo Ibern. Dominii append. Monastic 732. 
t Baxter, p. 100. 



89 

selves from the district of Bolgae into their own resi- 
dence in Leinster, about five hundred and fifty years, 
as they say, before the christian era. They add, that 
from the first annals of Ireland it was discovered that 
its southern regions were called Mumha, which they 
interpret, the settlement or habitation of the abori- 
gines, from whence its inhabitants were called Mum- 
hanii or Momonii, that is inhabitants of the country 
of the aborigines.* 

Others think Momonia is a corruption or con- 
tracted Celtic word Mammon, the ancient name of 
the province of Munster, signifying the country of the 
great mother ; as they derive Mama or Moma, the 
name of a cave or cavern between Elphin and Ab- 
bey-Boyle, from Mammoii, which, in the Celtic lan- 
guage, means the place of the shrine of the great 
mother. For tradition tells us that there existed 
there at one time a celebrated grot, consecrated to 
Ops, the great mother of antiquity, whither the Bel- 
gian chiefs used, upon occasions, resort to consult the 
shades of their departed heroes. This object of re- 
ligious resort was also known by the name of Sib- 
bol Ama, Anum, Anagh, Aonagh, and Mamman, 
whence the Bolgaj, who had settled in the southern 
parts of Ireland, and who principally worshipped the 
idol Mammon, called themselves Mammanagh, (Mam- 
monii) to distinguish themselves from the Crombrii, 

* Collect, vol. iii.306. 



90 

Crumbrii, or Crimbrii, on the western coast, who 
worshipped Fate ; and from the Belgoe who wor- 
shipped Bal, or Beal, or Baal, that is the sun or the 
element of fire.* 

To me it appears sufficiently probable that the 
Momonii were one of the Phoenician tribes who be- 
came possessed of this district to which they gave 
the name of Mamon, which in their language signi- 
fies riches or wealth, and by a very natural associ- 
ation called themselves Mamonii, that is the wealthy, 
the possessors of riches and abundance, intimating 
the superiority of their habitation above the other 
districts of this country, as well in artificial resources 
as in the luxuriancy of the soil. 

But if we furthermore compare the words Mamo- 
nia and Momonii, or Mammanagh with the supersti- 
tion of that nation, I doubt not but that we shall 
find them strictly conformable with Phoenician ex- 
traction; for ammun, in that language, means the 
image or likeness of a mother, ammana, a gift or of- 
fering, presented to a mother. Mammanagh, I con- 
ceive not derived from Mammon, but from Mam- 
muna, the name usually given by the Phoenicians to 
the superintending or sacrificing priest belonging to 
any of their chapels. And it is very likely that that 
whole tribe took their name from them, as the heads 
or presidents of their places of worship. I would 

* Collect, de Reb. Ibern. vol. iii. p. 31)8. 



91 



hint by the way, that the ancient Peruvians wor- 
shipped the sea as a deity, under the name of Mam- 
macocha, and paid similar homage and adoration to 
j*ivers and fountains as contributory to the great ele- 
ment.* But this name, though evidently bearing 
some analogy vaih Mamman and Mammanach, yet 
is of a different origin^ though Phoenician all the 
while, if I mistake not. For maim macha in that 
language means, encompassing waters, and metapho- 
rically, people applauding or clapping their hands. 



t Jas. Acosta Historia de las Indies, lib. v. c. 2. 4, from 
which and other authorities it is manifest that the ancient pagans 
worshipped the sea and all large collections of water. The 
book of wisdom, xiii. 2, is clear on the point. Beyer (Selden 
de Diis Syrii) states that the inhabitants of Mexico, Vir- 
ginia, and Bengal offered adoration to certain rivers and foun- 
tains; for the ancients imagined, according to Lipsius, that 
rivers and fountains were lesser divinities or genii. The Nile 
was worshiped with the most scrupulous veneration by the 
Egyptians. (See Plutarch and Athanasius.) For says Julius 
Firmicus, from the universal benefits of water they conceived it 
must be a god. Wherefore we find (he poets calling rivers 
sacred, (Hor. lib. i. od. 1. Juven. sat. iiii.^ as they did also 
fountains because of the presiding nymphs. Amongst the an- 
cient idolotrous Spaniards, it is plain from an inscription of 
Vasconius, published by Gurter, that fountains were considered 
divine. " We," (the Spaniards) said Senecti, (epist. 41) " ve- 
nerate the sources of great rivers, * * * the springs of warm 
waters are worshipped, and certain pools, &c.'* The Persians 
also, with the Scythians, Saxons, and other nations, as well 
east as west, conceived water to be sacred, as appears from 
Herodotus, (iv.) Strabo, (xvii.) Tacitus, and others. 



92 

in which sense we find macha occurs in the psalm 
xcvii. 9, the rivers will applaud, Machoc^ in the 
original, meaning, waters that brush or sweep away, 
as we often see waves do bodies upon the shore.* 



* The Peruvians, before their being governed by their Incas, 
worshipped a numberless multitude of Gods, or rather genii. 
There was no nation, family, city, street, or even house, but 
had its peculiar gods ; and that because they thought none but 
the god to whom they should immediately devote themselves, 
was able to assist them in time of need. They worshipped 
herbs, plants, flowers, trees, mountains, caves ; and in the pro- 
vince of Puerto Viego, emeralds, tygers, lyons, adders, ; and, 
not to tire the reader with an enumeration of the several objects 
they thought worthy of religious worship, every thing that ap- 
peared wonderful in their eyes, was thought worthy of adora- 
tion. 



93 



CHAP. VIII. 



The Crombrii Fate worshippers — Origin of the word Crom — 
Not indicating worship, but a nation that worships — Traces 
of it in Ireland — As also in several geographical names of 
Ireland — The Phoenician derivation of these words. 

But since we have made mention of the Irish 
Crombrii, we had best see to which nation they be- 
longed. Crom, or crum, or crim, amongst the an- 
cient Irish signified Providence or the Godhead, which 
would lead one to suppose these words were Irish, 
crom signifying God in that language. But if it 
savours of the place wherein this deity was worship- 
ped, which is not at all unlikely, then it takes its 
origin from the Phcenician, crom in that language 
signifying a shrubbery of trees. So that crombrii, 
crumbrii, or cimbrii would seem to mean crambri, 
foreigners, that is the Phoenicians, who paid worship 
to Providence or Fate* in this island. That under 



* Men, ever since the creation, have endeavoured to pry 
into the secrets of futurity : this desire is inherent in us, and 
has been by many philosophers adduced as one of the strongest 
proofs of the immortality of the soul, that, indignant at its con- 
finement, is ever attempting to release itself, and soar beyond 



94 



the name of foreigners the Phoenicians are meant, 
will appear from this circumstance, viz. that, in their 



present time and circumstances. Findinoj, however, all their 
efforts to discover them by the force of reason vain, they have 
mutually resorted to the aid of that blind god, chance ; and 
hence, omens from the flight of birds, from the entrails of sacri- 
fices, have arisen : of this last I propose now to write to you. 
When a choice between two equal things was to be made, the 
referring it to chance by the casting of lots would obviously 
present itself as a fair mode of decidino-, where the judgment 
was unequal to do so ; and we find, therefore, this among the 
most ancient usages recorded in the bible : thus Aaron cast 
lots for the scape-goat. The direction of these lots would, of 
course, be soon imputed to the divine pleasure of the Almighty 
observer and guider of all things, and it would then occur to 
the inquisitive that this mode might be adopted for looking into 
futurity. Accordingly we see that this superstitious practice 
was very quickly applied to such purposes, an instance of which 
is given in Esther, chap. iii. verse 7, where, when Haman de- 
sired to find out the most proper time to slay all the Jews, he 
ordered the pur to be cast, that is the lot, from day to day, 
and from month to month, and discovered that the thirteenth 
of the twelfth month was most favourable for his designs ; 
but he was deceived, and the event proved the vanity of relying 
upon such divination. This mode, however, was too simple for 
the generality of men, and the custom next adopted was the 
mixing together of a number of letters'm an urn, throwing them 
out, and examining the arrangement in which they might full; 
but as frequently no sense could be discovered from these, in 
lieu of letters whole words were adopted, and even here the 
answer was very often not to be understood. To obviate this, 
Cicero tells us that a variety of predictions were inscribed on 
pieces of wood, which were kept in a box, shaken, and one 
drawn out by a child ; he informs us how these were first dis- 
covered, but observes, " Tota res est inventio fallacis, avt ad 



95 

language, bri or bari signifies a foreigner. And the 
practice of consecrating groves to the worship of 
idols, is established by innumerable testimonies from 
the ancient heathen writers. Virgil in his ninth 
^neid, introduces Cybele thus speaking of herself. 
^' On a lofty mount I have a grove, a piny wood, by 
me beloved for many a year "* And Prudentius in 
the " Roman martyr," says, '^ shall I go to the piny 
grove of Cybele." 

qucBStum, aut ad superstitionem." ** The whole matter is, how- 
ever, fallacious every way." And in another place, in speaking 
of it, he says, " Quihus in rebus temeritas et casus, non ratio et 
consilium valentJ*^ ** Chance, not reason, presides over these 
things." This mode of divination is continually spoken of by 
the writers of that age ; thus, Lucretius, 

** Nequicquam Divum numen, sortesque fatigant." 

" In vain they implore the Gods, and search the Zo^s." 
And Ovid, 

" Auxiliuni per sacras qgerere sortes." 

*' To seek for aid in the sacred lots.^^ 
And again, 

** Mota Dea est, sortemque dedit." 

'*The goddess was moved, and granted a lot," 
Numberless other instances might be given of the frequency of 
the practice ; but, as the urn and heaven-descended mystical 
pieces of wood were not always at hand, another mode was in- 
vented throughout Greece and Italy which superseded their use. 
This was to take the words of some celebrated poet, as Homer, 
Euripides, or Virgil ; to open this book at hazard, and to re- 
ceive as an oracle the first passage that met the eye ; these were 
termed '* Sortes JJomerica," or *' Vigilance,'^ Among the He- 
brews too, there was a divination called Beth Cole. — Lim. Mag. 
* Pinea sylva mihi multos dilecta per aunos 

Lucus in arce fuit sumraa. - Virfjll. 



96 

But it may be asked, whence arose this cus- 
tom to the heathens of erecting altars to their de- 
ities in woods and groves. In imitation, no doubt, 
of Abraham, who, as we are told in Genesis, xxi. 33, 
planted a grove in Beersheba, and there invoked the 
name of the Lord.^ These groves consisted of oak 
plantations ; for it is said of Abraham,f Genesis xii. 



* Abraham planted a grove. In the first ages of the world, 
the worship of God was exceedingly simple ; there were no 
temples, an altar composed sometimes of a single stone, or 
sometimes of turf, was all that was necessary : on this fire 
was lighted, and the sacrifice offered. Any place was equally 
proper, as they knew that the object of their worship filled 
the heavens and the earth. In process of time, when fa- 
nnilies increased, and many sacrifices were to be offered, groves 
or shady places were chosen, where the worshippers might en- 
joy the protection of the shade, as a considerable time must be 
empoyed in offering many sacrifices. These groves becamc^f- 
terwards abused to impure and idolatrous purposes, and were 
therefore strictly forbidden. See Exod. xxxiv. 12; Deut. xii. 
3; xvi. 2\.—Dr, A. Clarke. 

t Abraham, the father of the faithful, was called away from 
his native country, somewhat less than three hundred years 
after the deluge, which naturally leads us to inquire into the 
origin of idolatry. Abraham, as a wanderer and sojourner in a 
strange coimtry,had not been above ten years absent from Ur, 
of the Chaldeans, when a famine obliged him to go into Egypt, 
at that time a very flourishing monarchy. That Egypt should 
have had a regal government within three huntlred years after 
the deluge, has been objected to by many of our deistical 
writers; but when attentively considered, we cannot find any 
thing in it of an extraordinary nature. People in those early 
ages lived in the most frugal manner, and few of them died be- 



97 

6, 7, that he passed over the land to the place Sichem, 
all along to the oak, (alon) Moreh, where the Lord 
appeared unto him, and that he there erected an 
altar in consequence. ]Moses afterwards designates 
this place in the plural number, saying, (Deut. xi. 30,) 
" Beside (aloni) the oaks, Moreh." V/ith which also 
two other passages accord, one in Genesis, xxxv. 4. 
the other in Judges ix. 6. We also tind in Genesis 
xiii. 18, that Abraham dwelt in the oaks (aloni) of 
Mamre, in Hebron, and there built an altar to the 
Lord. Afterwards also in Genesis, xiv. 13, he says, 
" he dwelt beside the oaks of Mamre." All which 
passages the septuagint renders, peri ten drun, that 
is, about the oak. From hence the idolatrous Ca- 
naanites began to consecrate oaks to their own 
divinities, and to worship in groves of that wood. 
The Phoenicians subsequently introduced the custom 
into Asia, Egypt, Africa, and the continent of Eu- 
rope, with the British isles. Ovid, speaking of the 
oak, calls it ^' sacred to Jove." Virgil says ^^ it was 
accounted an oracle by the Grecians." And Homer 
says the same in Od. xix.* 



fore they had attained to years of maturity ; so that tliere is no 
reason for us to be surprised, when we find ihe children of 
Mizraim foundinfi a monarchy, in the fertile plains of Eifvpt, 
as soon as a sufficient number of tiie human species had been 
collected together. — Ilurd. 

* See W. Cook's encpiiry into the patriarchal religion, &c. 



98 

The vestiges of the word, crom, can he still traced 
in Ireland in many of the old names given to its 
several localities ; for instance, we find the actual 
word occurs as the name of an old village which 
belongs at this day partly to the county of Kildare, 
and partly to that of Dublin, in the province of 
Leinster. In Crom-artin, a little village near Ardee, 
in the same province ; in Crom-castle, a town in the 
county Limerick, province of Munster ; in Mount 
Crom-mal, or Crom-la, between Loughs Swylly and 
Foile, in the county Donegal, province of Ulster, 
where the river Lubar, called by the natives Bredagh, 
and the river Lavath — beside which, in the declivity 
of a mountain, is a very remarkable cave called 
Cluna — take their rise ; in Mount Crom-la-sliabh, 
now called the Hill of Allen ; in Crom-oge, a little 
town in the barony of Maryborough, Queen's 
County, and province of Leinster ; in the old town 
of Crom-chin, which was otherwise called Atha and 
Rathcrayhan, and Drum Druid, but now more gene- 
rally known by the name of Croghan, being situated 
in the barony of Boyle, county Roscommon, pro- 
vince of Connaught, and formerly the principal 
city in that province. The name of Croghan is 
supposed to have been given to it from the likeness 
of the adjacent mountain to a pitcher, which that 
word in Irish signifies ; and Crom-chin from a cave 
in that mountain which the Druids had dedicated to 
Fate. And, finally, we may trace its vestiges in 



99 

Crom-lin, or Crum-lin, a little town in the county 
Dublin, as well as a little village in the barony of 
Massareene, in the county of Antrim ; which name 
the Irish interpret as the chapel or shrine of Crom, 
w^here the idolators used to sacrifice to this deity. 
To this origin they also refer Crumlin Water, the 
name of a river in the same barony of Massareene, 
and same county of Antrim. 

But it being my opinion that the word Crom has 
reference not to worship,* but to a nation that 

"^ In giving an account of tlie religions of ancient nations, we 
must be directed by two guides; namely, sacred and profane 
history. The former gives us a general view of their abomina- 
tions; the latter lays open all that now can be known concern- 
ing their public and private rites and ceremonies. Phoenice, 
Tyre, and Carthage, were all peo[)led by the sons of Ham; 
they had the same form of religion, spoke the same language, 
encouraged the same arts and sciences, used the same instru- 
ments in war, and inflicted the same punishments upon crimi- 
nals. Thus their civil and religious history is so blended 
together, that we cannot illustrate the latter, without taking 
some notice of the former. The Phoenicians were a remnant 
of the ancient Canaanites, who were suffered by the Divine 
Being, to remain unextirpated, that they should bo a scourge 
upon the children of Israel, as often as they relapsed into idol- 
atry. In scripture they are often mentioned, as a warlike 
people, under the name of Philistines, for the word Phoenice 
is Greek. They inhabited that part of Asia adjoining to the 
Mediterranean sea, and worshipped an idol named Dagon, 
much in the same form as a mermaid is represented by the fa- 
bulous writers ; a human body from the navel upwards, and the 
lower part that of a fish. The figure itself was very expressive ; 
for it pointed out, not only their situation near the sea, but 

H 2 



100 



worships, I shall now detail my sentiments respecting 
the derivation of the geographical names just 
alluded to. 

Crom-artin, then, I would derive from the Phoe- 
nician words Crom-arithin, a shrubbery dedicated to 
Fate,* and surrounded with pools or rivers. 



likewise that they were connecterl, both with sea and land. 
Invaded in their continental territories by the neighbouring na- 
tions, they settled in an island near adjoining, which they called 
Tyre ; and there remained in possession of it till the time of 
Alexander the Great. As a trading people, they sent colonies 
into Africa : but most of these were comprehended under the 
name of Carthagenians ; and such regard had Tyre and Car- 
thage for each other, that when Cambyses resolved to make 
war upon the latter, the Phoenicians refused to accompany 
him ; alledging in excuse, that they could not fight against 
their brethren, which obliged that prince to lay aside his 
design. Nay, the Carthagenians sent an annual tribute 
to the Tyrians, part of which was for the support of the civil 
government, and part for the maintainance of the priests and 
religion. 

The religion of the Carthagenians, which was the same as 
that of the Tyrians, Phoenicians, Philistines, and Canaanites, 
was most horrid and barbarous ; and so regular were they in 
practising what will ever dishonour human nature, that Chris- 
tians, in attending to their duty, may take an example from 
them. Nothing of any moment was undertaken without con- 
sulting the gods, which they did by a variety of ridiculous rites 
and ceremonies. Hercules was the god in whom they placed 
most confidence, at least he was the same to them as Mars 
was to the Romans, so that he was invoked before they went 
upon any expedition ; and when they obtained a victory, sacri- 
fices and thanksgivings were ofi'ered to him. 

* According to the notions of the Indian heathens, the 



101 

Crom-mal, from Cram-mala, a congregation of 
people in a grove or shrubbery of the deity Fate. 
Crom-la, from Cram-lah, anxious worshippers of 
Fate in a grove. The word sHabh, at the end of the 
word Crom-la-sliabh^ bears allusion to a fountain of 
this mountain, or forest, contiguous to the shrine ; 
for sliaba in the Phoenician, is the pipe of a fountain 
through which the water flows. 

Crom-oge, from Crom-og, which means, people 
burning victims in the shrubbery of Fate. 

Crom-chin, from Crom-schin, people applauding 
in the grove of Fate. 

Crom-lin, from Cram-lun, people entertained or 
sojourning in the grove* of Fate ; or hospitality 
beside the shrine of this idol. 



god Bruma writes upon the forehead of every new-born child 
an account of all that shall happen to him in this world, and 
that it is not in the power of God or man to prevent these 
things from taking place. Thus we find that the doctrine of 
fatality has taken place in the most early ages, and even in 
the most barbarous nations. 

This system being entirely that which was embraced by the 
followers of Epicurus amongst the heathens, and theSadducees 
among the .Tews, we shall not say any thing concerning it, be- 
cause it is but a bold attempt to set aside the utility of public 
and private worship ; for if God does not take notice of the 
actions of men in this life, then the whole bounds of religion 
are removed ; there is no motive to duty ; there is nothing to 
restrain us as mortals from committing the most horrid, the 
most unnatural crimes. 

* As it was the universal practice ihe ancient heathen 



102 



CHAP. IX. 



Ops not the Apis of the Egyptians, but one of the names of 
Cybele— She was the Roman Vesta - Etymology of the 
word — • Variously called from the mountains v)here she was 
worshipped — Origin of the word Sibbol — Thence Cybele — 
Why called Ama, Mammon, Anagh, Aonagh, or Aona — 
Shabana. 

But, before we proceed any further, I would 
entreat the readers' indulgence for the few inci- 
dental observations, which I purpose to make, upon 
that celebrated idol of antiquity. Ops, which, an- 
cient writers assure us, the Momonians worshipped 

nations to worship their idols in groves, before temples were 
erected, it may be proper here to inquire, what gave rise to 
that notion ? It is a principle acquired by experience without 
reading, that in every act of devotion the mind should be fixed 
on the grand object of worship. Every one who has walked 
in a grove will acknowledge, that there was more than a com- 
mon reverential awe upon his mind, which must be owing to 
the small number of objects that presented themselves. We 
may jnstly call them the haunts of meditation ; but still it 
cannot be denied, that many abominable crimes were com- 
mitted in them : some parts near their altars were set apart for 
secret lewdness, and even for such unnatural practices as 
ought not to be related. — Hurd, 



103 

in a celebrated grotto ; — as well as upon the other 
names by which this deity was distinguished.* A 
learned gentleman, and a shrewd searcher into the 
Phoenician idolatry, suspected once that Ops was to 
the Phoenicians the same as Apis, not that which 
Tibullusf calls the Memphian Bull, J and which the 
Memphians consecrated to the moon, but that 
which the Heliopolites had consecrated to the sun.§ 



* See chap. vii. 

t Tibul. lib. iii. eleg. 7. 

X The most magnificent temples were erected for him ; he 
was adored by all ranks of people while living, and when he 
died (for he was a living Bull) all Egypt went into mourning 
for him. We are told by Pliny, that, during the reign of 
Ptolemy Lagus, the Bull Apis died of extreme old age, and 
such was the pompous manner in which he was interred, that 
the funeral expences amounted to a sum equal to that of twelve 
thousand pounds sterling. The next thing to be done, was to 
provide a successor for this god, and all Egypt was ransacked 
on purpose. He was to be distinguished by certain marks 
from all other animals of his own species ; particularly he was 
to have on his forehead a white mark, resembling a crescent ; 
on his back the figure of an eagle ; and on his tongue that of 
a beetle. As soon as an ox answering that description was 
found, mourning gave place to joy ; and nothing was to be 
heard of in Egypt but festivals and rejoicings. The new 
discovered god, or rather beast, was brought to Memphis, to 
take possession of his dignity, and there placed upon a throne, 
with a great number of ceremonies. Indeed, the Egyptians 
seem to have given such encouragement to superstition, that 
not content with worshipping the vilest of all reptiles, ihey 
actually paid divine honors to vegetables. 

§ Voss. de orig. ct progress, idolat. 1. 29. 



104 

For the Phoenicians also worshipped the sun under 
the name of Baal, or Bel, by which, as the Assyrians 
and Babylonians, they understood, physically, the 
whole system of nature, as well terrestrial as celes- 
tial, and above all, the solar nature, as Servius tells 
us. They, accordingly, very appropriately gave to 
the sun the name of Belus, as the Moabites did 
that of Moloch. For as this latter appellation sig- 
nifies King, so does Baal, or Bel, signify Lord, as 
though the arbiter of all the blessings of nature. 
Wherefore, also, did they call him Bolatis, or Bolati. 
from the words Bol-ati, which means Baal,* or the 
Lord, who bestows.f But this Baal being distin- 
guished by various names, it hence happened that, 
in Scripture, the Israelites are blamed for serving 
Baals, in the plural number. This seems to have 
occurred in other countries also, for the Bolgae, a 
colony of the Phoenicians in Ireland, worshipped, as 



* But of all the gods of the Syrians and Canaanites, none 
were honored so much as Baal, who was no other than the 
Belus of the Chaldeans, and the Jupiter of the Greeks. It is 
probable the sun was worshipped under this name ; for Josiah* 
willing to make some atonement for the sins of his father 
Manasseh, in worshipping Baal and all the host of heaven, put 
to death the idolatrous priests that burnt incense unto Baal, to 
the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the 
host of heaven. He likewise took away the horses that the 
kings of Judah had given to the sun, and burnt the chariots of 
the sun with fire. — Hurd. 

t See Damascus in the life of Isidorus Photius. 



105 

we shall hereafter shew, the sun, or the principle of 
fire, as a deity, under various names. The name of 
Bolgse is compounded of the Phoenician words Bol- 
goi, meaning the nation that worships Bol, or Baal ; 
as Belgse is compounded of the \vords Bel-goi, 
amounting to the same. From whence the Bolgae 
and the Belgse were at first called by the Latins 
Bolgii and Belgii ; afterwards the Bolgian and the 
Belgian nations ; and finally, as we now call them, 
the Bolgas and the Belgae. From this cause it was 
that the writer, above alluded to, conceived Ops the 
same as Apis, which the Hieropolitans had conse- 
crated to the sun. 

Indeed I w^ould think this conjecture probable 
enough, were it not evident, from another source, 
that Ops was one of the names of Cybele, reputed 
by idolators as the daughter of Heaven and Earth, 
and designated as the Mother of the Gods, the 
Good Mother, and the Earth itself.* Wherefore 



* Pliny (11, 65.) affirms that the Gentiles worshipped the 
earth under the name of Mother^ and not only Mother but great 
Mother, because of its bountifulness. For this it was that they 
called her the eternal creator of men and gods, (Stat. Chebaid. 
viii. V. 304,) chief parent, and other such epithets; for having 
fallen away into idolatry from the religion of tlie patriarchs, 
who offered sacrifices to the true God through failh in the pro- 
mised Messiah, and having thus contaminated the original 
purity of the knowledge of the Godhead, they worshipped the 
elements, from which they conceived all things to have been 
realized, either as actual divinities or symbols of divinities, and 



106 

the Romans worshipped her under the name of 
Vesta, as bemg clothed in the beauty of her own 
manifold productions,* according as some imagine ;f 
though others would account for it otherwise. J Un- 
der this latter name she had two temples at Rome,§ 
one built by Romulus, the other by Numa Pom- 
pilius, in the mid space between the Capitoline and 
Palatine hills, both hills being surrounded by one 
wall. Her temples were always round, in allusion 
of course to the earth's form. 

Others would derive the name of Ops from the 
Egyptian word hop, a serpent ; others from the 
Hebrew apoe, a viper ; whence the Greek ophis, a 
snake, the root of which is poe, or phoe, to hiss. 
But this has nothing common, or in connection with 
the fables which mythology tells us of this divinity. 
They come more near the truth who say that Ops is 
a mountain of Phrygia, where this idol w^as wor- 
shipped, the name Ops, or Opes, implying a boun- 



amongst these, in a special manner, the earth, whence themselves 
originated, and into which all things again return in a state of 
decomposition. - (Plato. — Proclns.) Cybele was afterwards 
designated by various other names, many of which may still 
be traced upon ancient altars, and recorded by Plutarch, 
Pansanias, Gruler, Smelius, ^c. Camden mentions to have 
seen one of her altars in Biitain. 

* Quippe qua? rebus omnibus vestitur, 

t See Lud. Despre. on the Odes of Hor. lib. i. od. 2. 

X Cicero de Nat. Deo. i. n. 67. 

§ Dionys. Hal. earn. lib. ii. 



107 

clary, as though it were the limit of some particular 
country ; as also they think that she was called 
Rhea, the name by which she was worshipped at 
Hierapolis, from a mountain called Rea, meaning he 
saw, or he observed, from its lofty position command- 
ing a sight of distant objects. She w^as called Din- 
dymena, from the mountain Dindemain, which 
means, olive groves in an eastern quarter ; and Bere- 
cynthia, from breschin, or bereschin, a fir or pine 
grove. 

But our decision on the word Sibbol, a name by 
which the Irish, as well as almost all other nations, 
designated and worshipped Ops, or Cybele, must be 
guided altogether by another principle For here I 
at once recognize the Syriac character as derived 
from sibola, an ear of corn, under which guise the 
Phoenicians used to w^orship the earth as the mother 
of all harvests, fruits, and vegetables. All nations, 
therefore, by one common consent, represented 
Cybele holding in her right hand some ears of corn.* 

* Vossius states that there was a£ Rome, in the house which 
belonged to Cardinal Caesius, a marble altar, on which stood a 
statue of Cybele, with a tower upon her head, and holding millet 
and ears of corn in her right hand. The inscription was, " To 
the Great Idean, Mother of the Gods." Many imagine that, in 
allusion to the same principle, she was called Rhea ; not from 
the mountain of that name, in Persia, but from the Phoenician 
reah, he yielded fodder ; whence rei, pasture : the metaphori- 
cal signification of reah is, he obtained dominion. She was 
called Idean from id or ida, power. 



\ 



108 

Whence the Greeks gave her the name of Cubele, 
and the Latins that of Cybele. 

She was called Ama from the Phoenician word, 
am, a mother, and Mammon, from mammon, riches, 
or wealth, as the bestower of all blessings. 

The name of Anagh, by which she was also dis- 
tinguished, may refer, if you please, to the groves 
wherein she was worshipped ; for Anagh means de- 
light, or to be delighted, of course, with such worship. 
But I would prefer deriving it from nahag, he ruled, 
or governed ; for, as the daughter of Earth and 
Heaven, and the mother, besides, of the gods. Ops 
may be well supposed invested with no ordinary 
share of authority, in directing the affairs of the 
world. The Isle of Annagh, which lies between the 
island of Achil and the coast of the county Mayo, in 
the province of Connaught, takes its name from this ; 
as does also a little town of the same name near 
Charleville, in the county Cork ; and Annagh- uan 
an island adjacent to the county Gal way, intimating, 
as it were, a people who worshipped Anagh : for the 
Phoenicians used, synechdocally, to call the inhabit- 
ants of any particular district by the generic name 
of "ben." 

Nor can I see any objection to the derivation of 
the names of these places from the giant Anac, the 
son of Arbas,* from whom the Phoenicians were 

* Joshua XV. 13, 14. Ben- Anac means literally the sons 



109 

called Anakin, or Ben-Anac, the sons or descendants 
of Anac, their principal or leading trihe, agreeably 
and corresponding to the Irish appellatives, Mac- 
Carthy, MacMahon,* O'Brien, O'Connel, the '' Mac" 



of giants or heroes, of the stock of which Anac was the first 
parent. Whence to this day, in the old Irish ballads, Feineagh 
means a champion, or heroic warrior. 

* At such time as Robert Vere, Earl of Oxford, was in the 
Barons warres against King Richard the Second, through the 
mallice of the Peeres, banished the realme and proscribed, he 
with his kinsman, Fitz-Ursula, fled into Ireland, where being 
prosecuted, and afterwards in England put to death, his kins- 
man there remaining behinde in Ireland rebelled, and, con- 
spiring with the Irish, did quite cast off both their English name 
and alleagiance, since which time they have so remained still, 
and have since beene counted meere Irish. The very like is 
also reported of the Mac-swines, Mac-mahones, and Mac- 
shehies of Mounster, how they likewise were aunciently Eng- 
lish, and old followers to the Earle of Desmond, untill the 
raigne of King Edward the Fourth ; at which time the Earle 
of Desmond that then was, called Thomas, being through false 
subornation (as they say) of the Queene for some offence by 
her against him conceived, brought to his death at Tredagh 
most unjustly, notwithstanding that he was a very good and 
sound subject to the King. Thereupon all his kinseraen of the 
Geraldines, which then was a mighty family in Mounster, in 
revenge of that huge wrong, rose into armes against the King, 
and utterly renounced and forsooke all obedience to the Crowne 
of England, to whom the said Mac-swines, Mac-sheliies, and 
Mac-mahones, being then servants and followers, did the like, 
and have ever sithence so continued. And with them (they 
say) all the people of Mounster went out, and many other of 
them, which were meere English, thenceforth joyned with the 
Irish against the King, and termed themselves very Irish, 
taking on them Irish habits and customes, which could never 



no 

and the '' O " prefixed to the latter, importing the 
same as the Ben in the former instance, viz. '' the 
sons of," or '' descended from." 

Aonagh, another name of Ops, was pronounced 
Aona by the ancient Irish, and by others called 
Shabana. And as dm'ing the celebration of her 
solemnities they always held a fair or markets beside 
her temple, it requires no great effort of imagination, 
as I should think, to derive this name from aon, 
wealth, or a place of public resort. Shabana evi- 
dently comes from shaban, abundance, which again 
is derived from shabaa, he abounded ; all obviously 
in keeping with mercantile views and attendance on 
the market-place. This is still more clearly proved 
by the name given to the first of November in their 
calendar, viz. Oidche Shambna, the day, or rather 
the night (Oidche signifies night) on which idola- 
trous ceremonies were usually celebrated.* The 
festival itself was called Tlachgo, which some refer 
to the rotundity of the earth, but I should prefer 
deriving it from the Phoenician tla agod, a gathering 
of yearling lambs, such being the usual victims on 
the occasion.f From Phoenicia therefore it was 



since be cleane vvyped away, but the contagion hath remained 
still among their posterityes. Of which sort (they say) be most 
of the surnames which end in an, as Heriian, Shinan, Mungan, 
&c. the which now account themselves natural Irish. — Spenser, 

* See Collect, de Reb. Ibern. p. 420. 

t Noah had taught his children the knowledge of the true 



Ill 

that the worship of Ops, under her various designa- 
tions as particularized above, was introduced into 
Ireland, to procure for her votaries that successful 
career as well in agriculture as in commerce, of 
w^hich she was supposed the bountiful superintendant. 
We may this day observe a vestige of her name in 
that of an old town in Lower Ormond, the capital, 
at one time, of the district anciently called Epg- 
anacht Aine Cliach, called Aonoch. It is now 



God; and that they were to trust in his mercy through the 
mediation of a Redeemer, who was to be revealed to them at 
a future period of time ; for the necessity of a mediator between 
God and man was a general notion from the beginning. But 
as no clear revelation was then made of this Divine person, 
the people began to choose mediators for themselves, from 
among the heavenly bodies, such as the sun, moon, and stars, 
whom they considered as in a middle state between God and 
men. This was the orijyin of all the idolatry in the heathen 
world ; and at first they worshipped those orbs themselves, but 
as they found that they were as often under the horizon as 
above it, they were at a loss how to address them in their 
absence. To remedy this, they had recourse to making images, 
which after their consecration they believed endowed with 
Divine power, and this was the origin of image worship. This 
religion first began among the Chaldeans, and it was to avoid 
being guilty of idolatry that Abraham left that country. In 
Persia, the first idolators were called Sabians, who adored the 
rising sun with the profoundest veneration. To that planet they 
consecrated a most magnificent chariot, to be drawn by horses 
of the greatest beauty and magnitude, on every solemn festi- 
val. The same ceremony was practised by many other 
heathens, who undoubtedly learned it from the Persians, and 
other eastern nations,- Hurd. 



112 

called Nainagh, or Nenagh, and is situated in the 
county Tipperary. I should observe that Aonoch, 
in Irish, signifies also a mountain or a leader. But 
Nenagh I would derive from the Irish words naoi- 
nach, an assemblage of people, rather than, as would 
others, from neonach, a player or buffoon. 



CHAP. X. 



The Iben, a people of Ireland — Spain not cognizant of the 
Iberi of Mount Caucasus — Iberia, a Phoenician word — 
Calpe, the extremity of the earth in the estimation of the 
Phoenicians — A promontory and city in Spain, actually the 
extremity of the earth's extension — This occupied by the an- 
cient Iberi — The sun setting in the river Iber — The Irish 
Iberi, a tribe of the Spanish Iberi — Where they settled — 
The district of Ibrickin, a vestige of them — Derivation of 
this word, as also of Ibercon — The idols, Sicuth and Kion. 

The Iberi, a people of Ireland, of whom Ptolemy 
makes mention, inhabited the coasts of the county 
of Kerry, in the province of Munster. Irish writers 
make mention of another people of this name, who 
had settled in the county of Derry, in Ulster, be- 
tween Lough Foyle and the river Ban.* But who 

* Eicharcl Cirenester, in his *' De Situ Britanniaj," chap. 



those Iberi were we must now betake ourselves to 
consider briefly. 

To suppose, then, that the Caucasian Iberi had 
gone into Spain, and given to that country the name 
of Iberia, I hesitate not to pronounce as nonsense 
the most absurd, though supported by the authority 
of Varro,* and sanctioned by the adoption of Apianf 
and Diodorus Siculus.J No ; the origin of Iberia 
must be sought from another source. § Eber, in the 
Hebrew, and Ebra or Ibra, in the Chaldee, signify 
a passing over, or any thing remote or far away ; 
their plurals, Ibrin or Ebrin, signify boundaries or 
limits : the Spaniards, therefore, were very naturally 
called Iberi, being, as the Phoenicians imagined, the 
very remotest inhabitants of the earth, and their 
city, Calpe, the furthermost spot in their opinion 
of the habitable globe. || Conformable to this is the 
character given by Possidonius to the temple of 
Hercules, in Gades or Cadiz, calling it " the bound- 
ary of the earth and sea."^ From the same reason 
the Jews would have Gaul and Spain to be the 
boundaries of their own land. The Zarphat and 

iii. says, from an old Roman geographer, " The ancients put 
it past doubt, that the Iberi took up their settlements in 
Ireland." 

* Varro ap Pliny, iii. 3. 

t Apian in Ibericis, p. 22(;. 

I Diod. Sic. V. 210. 

§ Bochart. Geog. Sacr. iii. 7. 

II Strabo, lib. iii. 

H See Erasmus on " Pill. Her." iii. chap. 20. 

I 



114 

Sarphad mentioned by Obadiah, ver. 20. the Jews 
would have to be Gaul and Spain ; because the 
'^psalter" extends the empire of Christ even unto the 
boundaries of the earth, which Aben-ezra * says, are 
situated in the remote west. Finally, the Spaniards, 
themselves, have long since given the name of Finis 
Terras ,f or land's end, to the Nerian or Celtic 
promontory in Artabria. A city and district of the 
same country, in the district of Compostella, still 
preserves its name of land's end — Finisterre. 

Others suppose that the Spaniards were called 
Iberi, from the river Iber; just as Egypt got its 
name from the river Nile, which Homer designates 
— Egyptus. Iber, the name of the river, signifies 
in the Phoenician, rapidly flowing. J 

* Psalras Ixxi. 8. 

t Some Spaniards derive this name from the Celticjin-es-tere^ 
that is, a fair and fertile mountain. As they do, also, the 
names of the towns, Finestras, in the Celtiberi, and Fiiiestrat, 
in the Edetani, from the Celtic fin-es-tra, a village on a hill 
beside a river. 

I The river Iber rises in the district of the Cantabrians, 
hard by Juliobriga, and flows by the ancient Vetones and 
Vascones, dividing the Ilergates from the Editani. Avienus 
(in Oris Maritimis) mentions another Iberus, near the ocean, 
to the west of the former, being no more than a stream raid- 
way between Boetis and Anas, now called Rio Tinto, or de 
Aceche ; these are his words : — 

*' Iberus inde manat amnis, et locos 
Foecilndat unda. Plurimi ex ipso ferunt 
Dictos Iberos, non abillo flumine. 
Quod inquietos Vascones perlabitur. 
Nam quid-quid auini gentis hugus adjacet, 
Occiduum ad axem, Iberiam cognominant.'* 



115 

The more ancient Iberi had not possession of the 
whole of Spain, but only of that part of it confront- 
ing the Mediterranean, and extending from the 
Pyrenees to Calpe, and the pillars of Hercules, 
But though the Iberi were, properly speaking, the 
more remote,* yet the ancient geographical writers 
accounted the Spaniards, indiscriminately, as the 
most distant people ; which gave rise to the fiction, 
on the part of the poets, of the sun's setting not 
only in the ocean, but more particularly in the river 
Iber, thereby to mark out the extremity of the 
earth's extent.f 

The Iberia, therefore, of the ancient Irish took its 
name from the tribes of the Iberi of Spain, and 
consisted of that tract of country in the environs of 
Beerhaven, in the county of Cork ; the families of 
which people would seem to have been the original 
inhabitants of the county Kerry, and a part of the 
county Clare, in the same province, J where we 
still find the barony of Ibrickin, a proof of the 



* Hence we may infer, that the Boetic Iberi, of whom 
Avienus speaks, were more properly so called Iberi, for they 
were the most extreme in respect to Spain in general. 

t Bochart i. 35. Spain retains the traces of this name in 
the Iberic Mountains, which pass through the middle of the 
kingdom of Arragon, in Ibera, the name of an ancient city of 
the Ilercaones, which Livy designates as '* viost opulent," and 
in Iberura, a town of Cantabria. 

I The Poets tell us, that tliis district of Ireland, was ap. 
propriated to Heber, son of Milesius. See Seward. 

I 2 



116 

presence of the Iberi, who gave it that name. 
It is probable, too, that the descendants of the 
Spanish Iberi, who all originated from a Phoenician 
stock, were accounted kin, as the sons of Obab or 
Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses,* and from him 
called Kini. This would account for the appear- 
ance of this word, as the last syllable of Iberi-kin : 
and who is it that does not know the avidity of the 
Phoenicians to perpetuate their nobility, and the 
fondness of delight with which they dwelt upon 
every memorial of the glory of their ancestors ? 

Or, Kin might be equivalent with Kini, that is 
the Cinnaei, a people in the land of Canaan, who 
were also called the Cinnaean race.f And this would 
seem supported by the names of certain localities 
still preserved in this country ; for instance, that of 
Cinneich, the residence of Dermott Mac Carthy, J Esq. 



* Judges i. 16. 

t Judges iv. 11, 17. 

X A pathetic incident connected with the Mac Cartys has 
such claims on the feelings that I will not conclude this narra- 
tive of their fortunes without the mention of it. A considerable 
part of the forfeited estates of that family, in the county Cork, 

was held by Mr. S , about the middle of the last century. 

Walking one evening in his demesne, he observed a figure, 
apparently asleep, at the foot of an aged tree, and, on approach- 
ing the spot, found an old man extended on the ground, whose 

audible sobs proclaimed the severest affliction. Mr. S 

inquired the cause, and was answered — " Forgive me, sir; my 
grief is idle, but to mourn is a relief to the desolate heart and 



117 

near Bandon, in the county Cork ; that of Cineal 
Fearmaic, a district in old Thomond, in the county 
Clare; and that of Cineal-Eoghean, an ancient and 
extensive tract of the province of Ulster, comprising 
the present counties of Tyrone, Armagh, Donegal, 
and part of the county Derry. This latter inter- 
pretation may be applied, also, to several names of 
the old Irish tovv^ns beginning with Kin. To a 
Phoenician source must we also refer the origin of 
the word Ibercon, the name of a place in the 
county Kilkenny,* between the baronies of Ida and 
Igrim, being composed of the words Iberi-con, that 
is, the staunch, the firm Iberi. Nor is it unlikely 
that they consisted of those, who borrowed from the 
Phoenicians the worship of the idol Kiun or Kion, 
which we are told by the prophet Amos, v. 26., the 



humbled spirit. I am a Mac Carty, once the possessor of that 
castle, now in ruins, and of this ground ; — this tree was planted 
by my own hands, and 1 have returned to water its roots with 
my tears. To-morrow I sail for Spain, where I have long 
been an exile and an outlaw since the Revolution. I am an 
old man, and to-night, probably for the last time, bid farewell 
to the [place of my birth and the home of my forefathers.'* 
— Croft on Croker. 

* Canice, son of Laidec, a celebrated poet, was the founder 
and first abbot of the abbey of Aghavoe, where he died the fifth 
of the ides of October, in tlie year 599 or 600. The episcopal 
see was at length removed from Aghavoe to Kilkenny, or the 
cathedral (Kil) of Cannice (Kenny), called after this saint, to- 
wards the end of the twelfth century, by Felix O'Dulany, then 
bishop. — Mac Geoghegan. 



118 

Syrians worshipped in conjunction with their Idol 
Sicuth. The septuagint translation of the bible calls 
this idol, " Astron/' a star ; the vulgate renders it, 
^^ the image of your idols, the star of your God."* 
The Hebrews think it to be Saturn, who was called 
Keuan by the Persians and Arabians ; and it is well 
known that the Phoenicians worshipped this deity 
under a variety of names and symbols. 



* V. 26. The Phcenicians were accustomed to carry about 
with them some small images, representing certain gods, in 
carved chariots ; the tabernacle of Moloch, above mentioned, 
seems to have been a machine of this kind. The first images 
or statues were made in honour of great men, who had per- 
formed extraordinary exploits ; and these being set up in par- 
ticular places, great veneration was paid to them, which, in the 
end, turned to religious adoration. It appears, from Pliny, 
that those statues were at first made of brick, such as that 
used in building the famous tower of Babel. As to the text 
itself, above alluded to, it should run thus: — ** But ye have 
borne the tabernacle of your god, (Moloch) ; and ye have also 
borne Chium, your likeness ; the star (Remphan) of your god, 
{the same Moloch.) The common translation insinuates, that 
Moloch and Remphan, or Chium, were different deities, 
whereas, according to that proposed, they were the same, 
since it makes Chium and Remphan the names of that star 
which the Arabians and Egyptians appropriated to the false 
deity, called by the Ammonites, &c. by way of eminence — 
Moloch, or King. 



119 



CHAP. XI. 



The Irish Brigantes, not the Breogani of a later date — neither 
Armenians, nor Phrygians. — Various names of Brigantia, 
in Spain — Pharos therein, by whom built — An oracle of 
Menistheus, in an observatory therein — The Irish BriganteSy 
a tribe of the Spanish Phoenicians — The Heneti — Why so 
called — Why the Briganters so called — Brigantium the re- 
sidence of the Irish — Vestiges of this name, as well in Ireland 
as in Spain. 

More celebrated than the Iberi far, in ancient 
Ireland^ was another people, called the Brigantes, 
who were either actually Phoenicians, or descended 
from the Phoenicians of Spain. O'Connor makes 
mention of Gagman's poem,* wherein it is said that 
Brioganus, the son of Brathus, in a right line from 
Fenius, one of their wise men, was the founder of 
Brigantia in Spain. And that his posterity had 
sailed from thence into Ireland, under the conduct 



Beginning thus, " Canam bunliadus n)on GaotlUil ;" that 



}, ** I sing of the origin of the Gadalians.' 



120 

of the two brothers, Heber* and Heremon.f The 
Spanish harbour, which the Greeks call Brugantia, 
by Ptolemy called Phlaouion Brigantion, and by the 
Romans, Flavia Brigantum, is supposed to have been 
so called after his name. Its modern name is Co- 
runa, and it is only forty-eight hours' voyage, straight 
a-head, with a fair south west wind, from any port 
on the coast of Ireland. CEticusJ still further tells 
us, that in the abovementioned town of Brigantia 
there is a watch-tower of prodigious height, called 
Pharos, and intended chiefly as a light-house for 
the direction of vessels lying out at sea.§ And 
Orosius,|| says that this had been built by the Tyrian 
Hercules, who, we know from Diodorus Siculus, had 
subdued Iberia, and all the countries thence to the 
going down of the sun, before he had crossed the 
Alps. Keating,^ nevertheless, asserts, that this tower 
was built by Breoganus the founder of the city, and 
that the first discovery he made therefrom, by the 
aid of a telescope, was the existence of this our 
island, to which he instantly transferred a colony of 



* Giraldus Cambrensis (Topog. Diet. iii. cap. vii.) in the 
following century, and Nennius in the ninth, have asserted the 
same. 

t Apud. Casaub. in Strab. t. 1. p. 206. note 3. 

t This was called the town of Augustus, in the time of 
Mela. 

§ Adversus Gentes I. 17. Alias I. 2. 

II IV. 

H Psalter of Cormac. 



121 

his subjects, that is the Brigantes, the same who in 
the Irish annals are called Sliocht Briogan, that is, 
the stock or the progeny of this leader. 

Straboj* alluding to the origin of this observa- 
tory, says, — " In this place is the oracle of Menes- 
theus, and the tower of Capio, built upon a rock, 
surrounded by the sea, a prodigy of art, like the Pha- 
ros ; and it is so contrived, that the rays of light falling 
thereon are refracted and reflected in every direction, 
as if issuing out of so many chinks, exhibiting all the 
beauty and the ruddiness of the sun or moon, when 
either rising or setting, and seen through the me- 
dium of a transparent and a dry cloud.'* The 
harbour of Menestheus is mentioned by him in the 
same passage, as it is also by Ptolemy ; Menestheus, 
himself, having been the leader of the Athenians at 
the time of the Trojan war, and the person who, as w^e 
read in the commentaries of the Grecians, on his 
return from Illium to Athens, had been expelled 
thence by the descendants of Theseus, and betaken 
himself forthwith to Spain.f 



* Hisce in locis, Oraculum Menesthei est, et Capionis tur- 
ns saxo imposita, quod mari cingitur, opus mirabile, Phari 
instar, quibus infractos radios visus, veluti in fistulas quasdam 
diffundi, et raajorem verA quantitatem fingere, quemadmodiini 
cum solem lunamve orientem aut occidentem per aridam, te- 
nuemque nubera intuemurj rubere putamus." i. 3. 

t See Casaub. in Strab. O'Connor. 



122 

Baxter,* however, is of opinion, that the Brigantes 
were a people of ancient Phrygia and Armenia,f 
who passed over into Thrace, and made themselves 
masters, in the very earliest days, and by natural 
occupation, of almost the entire of Europe ; they 
were also, he conceives, called Heneti, from hen, 
which, in the two countries abovementioned, is equi- 
valent with ancient, or antique. But the Brigantes 
being evidently Phoenicians, or, at least, a stock of 
the Phoenician Iberi, I should think it more pro- 
bable, that they got the name of Heneti, in after 
times, from the depravity of their moral conduct, 
the word eneth, in the Phoenician language, signi- 
fying scandalous or depraved. And from thence, 
perhaps, comes the Spanish word, bergante, which 
signifies the same. It may, it is true, admit of 
another derivation, and infinitely more to their credit, 
namely, that of being expert at the management of 
the spear, for heneth, in the Syriac and Hebrew, 



* Gloss. Antiq. Brit. p. 48. 

f Armenia is a very extensive country, and generally divided 
into the greater and lesser, but taking both together, they are 
bounded in the following manner. It has Georgia on the north; 
on the south mount Taurus, which divides it from Mesopotamia, 
on the west the river Euphrates, and on the east the Cas- 
pian mountains. Georgia has the Caspian sea on the east, the 
Euxine sea on the west, on the north Circassia, and, on the 
south, part of Armenia. The river Cur, or Cyrus, so called 
from the emperor of that name, runs through it, dividing it into 
two equal parts. 



123 

signifies a spear. Another exposition may also be 
adduced, from the custom of embalming the bodies 
of their dead, which the Jews, as w^ell as Syrians, 
had borrowed from the people of Egypt.* In support 
of this latter exposition we shall state, that henet or 
hanat, in the Syro-Chaldaic language, signifies to 
embalm, the ingredients in which process we may, 
en passant, observe to have been myrrh, aloes, cedar 
oil, salt, wax, pitch, and rosin, invented with a view 
to the preservation of their dead, in a state of sweet- 
ness and indecomposition, in their appropriate recep- 
tacles. With this ceremony was the body of our 
blessed Saviour interred, with aromatic spices, which, 
Josephus tells us, corresponded with the form of the 
Jewish sepulture. It is not at all improbable, there- 
fore, that these Phoenician tribes were called Eneti, 



* When any of the Egyptians died, the whole family quitted 
the place of their abode; and during sixty or seventy days, 
according to the rank or quality of the deceased, abstained 
from all the comforts of life, excepting such as were necessary 
to support nature. They embalmed the bodies, and many 
persons were employed in performing this ceremony. The 
brains were drawn through the nostrils by an instrument, and 
the intestines were emptied by cutting a hole in the abdomen, 
or belly, with a sharp stone ; after which, the cavities were 
filled up with perfumes, and the finest odoriforous spices ; but 
the person who made the incision in the body for this purpose, 
and who was commonly a slave, was obliged to run away im- 
mediately after, or the people present would stone him to 
death. 



124 

that is the embahners,* from having introduced this 
custom into Ireland^ as they did, also, into Spain. 



* A question may here naturally be asked, Why do the 
heathens in the East Indies, in conformity with the practice of 
the Romans, burn the bodies of the dead ? There have been 
several conjectures concerning the origin of this barbarous 
practice, as first, many of the eastern nations adored the tire, 
and therefore they considered it as an acceptable piece of de- 
votion, to offer up the dead bodies of their relations to it. 
Secondly, their pride might induce the most celebrated heroes, 
and the most beautiful women, to desire to conceal from the 
world, what poor helpless creatures they were while alive. 
Thirdly, they beheld many indignities offered to the dead, and 
they were willing, nay desirous that nothing of that nature 
should happen to their relations. Lastly, they might do it in 
order to prevent a contagious distemper, which often takes 
place from the noxious smell of dead bodies. Whether any, 
or all of these conjectures may be founded in truth, we leave 
the reader to judge, but, certain it is, the practice itself, is 
contrary to natural religion, as well as to Divine revelation. 
Natural religion points out, that as man was formed out of the 
earth, so at death his body should be consigned to it. *' Dust 
thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." Divine revelation 
teaches us, that as Christ laid down his head in the grave, so 
the bodies of those who are his faithful followers, should be 
deposited in the earth ; to rest till that awful period, when he 
shall come to judge the world in righteousness. Let us pity 
heathens, who have none of those consolations, which our 
holy religion holds out to us ; let us daily pray for their con- 
version ; let us not be afraid to lay down our heads in the 
silent grave ; let us not reflect much on the indignities that 
may be offered to our bodies after death ; for our Divine Re- 
deemer has gone before us, he has made the grave sweet unto 
us, and by his almighty power, he will raise us up at the last 
day.— //iwrd. 



125 

Baxter, however, thinks that the Brigantes or 
Heneti, as they may indiiferently be called, having, 
as we have said, passed over into Thrace, got the 
name of Bruges, Briges, or Friges, from the cold- 
ness of that climate, and these names got afterwards 
inflected, according to the several Teutonic and 
Britannic dialects, into Brigantes, Frixi, Frigones, 
Frisii, Friscones, Brisones, Britones, and Britanni. 
Whence he infers, and gives himself credit for the 
discovery, that the Brigantes of Ireland were the 
Gauls and the foreigners, who in the older times were 
denominated the Erii * or Scots ;f and that this was 
a name common to the Britons, nay, to all the Gauls, 
before the arrival of the Belg^ from Germany. 
This distinguished writer adds, that the original 
Brigantes on being expelled their own territories, 



* Baxter's Gloss. Antiq. Brit. p. 119. 

t Two kindes of Scots were indeed (as you may gather out 
of Buchanan) the one Irin, or Irish Scots, the other Albin- 
Scots; for those Scots are Scythians, arrived (as I said) in the 
north parts of Ireland, where some of them after passed into 
the next coast of Albine, now called Scotland, which (after 
much trouble) they possessed, and of themselves named Scot- 
land ; but in process of time (as it is commonly scene) the 
dominion of the part prevaileth in the whole, for the Irish 
Scots putting away the name of Scots, were called only Irish, 
and the Albine Scots, leaving the name of Albine, were called 
only Scots. Therefore it commeth thence that of some writers, 
Ireland is called Scotia-major, and that which now is called 
Scotland, Scotia- minor. — Spenser. 



126 



^ 



came in quest of a new settlement to this island, 
and that the Ceangi, a people of the Dumnonian 
Belgas, called by the Irish Scoto-Brigantes, For- 
Bolg, or Belgian-men, followed them in the pursuit 
of similar adventures. 

But it being admitted on all hands, as we have 
said, that the Brigantes were a people of the Phoeni- 
cians, who landed in Ireland, from the coast of 
Gallacia, or France ; they could not possibly have 
been so named from the cold of that climate, which 
we all know to be very temperate, not to say warm. 
Neither were they so called from Briganus, the son 
of Brethus, who belongs more to the day-dreams of 
story-tellers, than to the rigid accuracy of historical 
truth. No ; Bregan or Breogan, I consider a Phoeni- 
cian term, from brekin,* which signifies, bringing 
offerings to an idol or performing the ceremony of 
genuflection before it, which again comes from, brie, 



* The conversion of the letter k ov c into g is easy and fre- 
quent. Bracca, a city of Lusitania, is pronounced Braga, by 
the Spaniards; Malaca, the emporium of Bcetica, Malaga; 
Lucus, a city of Galliecia, Lugo ; Astorica, Astorga ; the 
river Sicoris, Segre, and so on. From the Latin secare, they 
say segar ; from pacare, pagar ; from decollare, degollar ; from 
vacare, vagar ; from jocari, jugar; from joco, juego; from 
caeco, ciego ; from cato, gato; from lacus, lago, &c. A 
similar permutation of the same letter occurs in various words 
in all languages : so that it is not at all to be wondered at, 
that by the change of c or k into g, these people got from 
Breckin, the name of Braga, Breage, or Briganges. 



127 

that is, he bent the knee, the attitude at once of 
adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving. It also means 
to offer presents to an idol, by which we are to 
understand the phrase of blessing (brie) an idol, as 
it occurs in scripture. From brekin, therefore, they 
being the most superstitious of all the Phoenicians, 
they were at first called Breghan, then Bregan or 
Breogan, whence, afterwards, the Greeks called them 
Brigantoi, and the Latins, Brigantes, according to 
the genius of their respective tongues. Nor are 
there wanting persons who would maintain, that the 
Spanish Brigantes were called Brigantoi by the 
Greeks, from the words purgos ajithos, a florid 
tower, the name by which the Farus, in Brigantia, in 
Spain, was formerly designated. But the Spanish 
Brigantes, they should recollect, were not Greeks, 
but Phoenicians. 

Ptolemy places the Irish Brigantes in the south- 
western quarters of this island, as a kin to those 
who were distinguished under that name in Britain, 
living about the sacred promontory, leron, just 
opposite Wales : adjacent to them, on the west, lay 
the Vodii, and behind those, the Itterni, or Ivernii ; 
in the west, still behind the promontory of Notium, 
lay the Vallabori, to whom Drosius joins the Luceni. 
From these the Nagnatae, Erdini, and Venicnii, 
stretched towards the north : but in the extreme 
northern point of the island lay the Robogdii, by 
the promontory of this name. On the west, the 



128 



1 



Voluntii, the Eblani or Blanii, near the city Eblana, 
now Dublin, the Cauci and the Manapii, between 
whom, and the Brigantes. lay the Coriondi. These 
several people Ptolomy has handed down, as existing 
in this country ; but we find not the Scots included 
amongst them, and this has led Cellarius * to suspect, 
that they were subsequent to those people, at least 
under this name, in point of occupancy. The opinion 
of modern f geographers is, that they inhabited the 
eastern districts, now called Catherlaghensis, Miden- 
sis, and Waterford ; and that from them a part of 
the district of Media is called, as well in the Irish 
annals as in some old writings respecting Saint 
Patrick, Magh-breg, or the plain of the Brigantes, a 
name it holds to the present day. 

This our Brigantia then, the modern Waterford, 
was situated opposite to Brigantia in Spain. In it 
not only does the river Brigas, now the Barrow, but 
also the barony of Bargy in the soutli-west of Ire- 
land, seem to savour strongly of the Brigantine 
name. Bruighan-da-darg, a district in the county 
Meath ; Brigown, Brigowne or Brighghobban, 
formerly a city but now a little village in the barony 
of Condons, county Cork, all savour of the same, 
though some would suppose the last mentioned had 



* Geog. Antiq. ii. 4. 
t See O'Connor. 



129 

been called after St. Abban,* the reputed founder 
thereof. To these we may add Briggo, a village in 
the barony of Ardes, county Down ; Bright, a town 
in the barony of Licale ; Briggs, a series of rocks 
and cliffs projecting into the sea at Carrickfergus ; 
Breoghain, an old district in the county Waterford; 



* Though we have seen in the first part, that there were 
Christians in Ireland in the first century, and lono- before the 
mission of St. Patrick ; that, independent of Corinac-Ulfada, 
monarch of this island in the third century, whom his piety 
and religion had rendered odious to the Pagans, several had 
left their native country on hearing oi the Christian name, and 
that having become perfect in the knovvleJge of tlie evangelical 
doctrine, and the discipline of the Criurch, some had preached 
the gospel in the different Pagan countries in Europe ; others, 
filled with zeal for the salvation of their fellow-citizens, had 
successfully expounded to them the word of God; still the 
nation was not yet considered as converted ; this grace was 
reserved for the reign of Laogare, and the pontificate of Saint 
Celestine I. This great pope, seeing the pious inclinations of 
those i-eople, and the success of private missionaries amongst 
them, thought of sending them an apostle invested with full 
authority, to complete a work so happily begun. The number 
of histories, which have been composed on the life of St. 
Patrick, has, in a great measure, tended to darken the know- 
ledge we should have of the truth of what concerns him. 
According to Usher, and ancient monuments in the libraries 
of Oxford and Cambridge, there were sixty-three or sixty-six. 
However, we must confine ourselves to the most genuine, and 
those which appear the most authentic, and least liable to 
contradiction; which are, the confession of St. Patrick, his 
letter to Corotic, and his life, written by some of his disciples. 
— Mac Genghcfjnu. 



130 

the river Braghan, and the town of Brick-river. 
But chiefly, and above all, we may recognise the 
Brigantine lineage in the names of those illustrious 
leaders who swayed the destinies of this kingdom in 
the days of its former glory, namely the Hy-Brea- 
ghan or the O'Breaghan, subsequently altered into 
O'Brien and O' Brian, as Seeward,* no mean au- 
thority, has before observed.f 

In Spain, too, we find memorials of the existence of 
those ancient people in the name, for instance, of 
the town and country of Brigantinos, near the port 
of Flavia Brigantium, the modern Corunna ; in that 
of Brigantes, a river of the Edetani ; in that of Ber- 
gatiano, a town of the Vetones ; in that of Berganzo, 
a city of Cantabria; and that of innumerable other 
towns, such as Berga, Bergo, Bergara, Bergezo, 
Bergedo, &c. But as to whether or not the Bergitani, 
a very ancient people on the east of the Lacetani, by 
the river Iber, could lay claim to this origin, is 
what I could not positively take upon myself to de- 
termine. 

Amongst the Pannonians there was also a place 
called Brigantium, which Aurelius calls Victor Ber- 
gentium. To this we should also refer the lake called 
Brigantium Lacus, now Lago di Costanza ; so that 
upon the whole, we see the nation of the Brigantes 



* See Topog. Article Breogliain. 

t Hy, signifies ** of," tantamount to " O.' 



131 

were the most numerous of any since the creation 
of man^ laying claim to all Europe as their proper 
country.* 



* See Baxter, p. 60. Strange, that from one extremity of 
the world to the other, even the most unenlighted nations 
should believe the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and 
yet many of those who have been brought up under the joyful 
sound of the gospel should deny it. This will rise in con- 
demnation against them, and they will be convicted at the 
tribunal of the great Judge of all the earth, for trampling upon 
knowledge. We are surprised still more, that there should be 
none but learned men in the world so abandoned, but learning 
without grace, and the fear of God becomes a real curse instead 
of an useful blessing. — Hurd. 



k2 



132 



CHAP. XII. 



The Scots were Scythians, a people of northern Asia — Their 
condition and morality — Blended with the Phcenicians — 
Their various incursions — Passed over into Spain — Become 
friends of the Romans — Their remarkable victories — Land- 
ing in Ireland from Spain — Where they settled — When 
called Scots — Whether this name can import Woodland folks 
— Whether the Scythians were so called from their adroitness 
in flinging the javelin — Scytha and Saca, both Phoenician 
names. * 

As Cellarius * is of opinion that it was not until 
after the days of Ptolemy that the Scots f had 
effected a landing in Ireland, or that, at least, they 
were not recognised there under this distinctive 
name, we cannot, I imagine, consistently with the 
plan we have proposed to ourselves, let this oppor- 



* Loco laudato. 

f Whether they at their first comming into the la'ud, or 
afterwards by trading with other nations which had letters, 
learned them of them, or devised them amongst themselves, is 
very doubtful; but that they had letters aunciently, is nothing 
doubtfull, for the Saxons of England are said to have their 
letters, and learning, and learned men from the Irish, and 
that also appeareth by the likenesse of the character, for the 
Saxon character is the same with the Irish. — Spenser. 



133 

tunity pass, without some disquisition respecting the 
origin of this people, and their arrival in this 
country. Nennius, in his little treatise called Capi- 
tula,* or little notes, has proved to demonstration, 
that they were originally Scythians, who, as the old 
Irish annalsf still farther inform us, had started from 
Egypt in the tenth year of Darius, King of the 
Persians. Here, however, there was an obvious 
mistake as to the place of their birth, for the Scy- 
thians were not Egyptians, but Asiatics, the most 
celebrated, and widely extended people too, in the 
northern regions of that country, described by 
Horace, J the immortal poet of the Augustan age, 
" as wanderers and fond of living in the opeii plains." 
They built no houses, they had no fixed abode, 
spreading themselves abroad over the bosom of the 
surface, and taking up a temporary residence for 
themselves and their families, whom they carried 
with them in carts, wherever and long as ever their 
convenience and inclination afforded. Hence they 
were called Amaxohioi and Amaxoforetoi, that is, 
as Sallust renders it, " whose waggons were their 
abodes." 

The Scythians, says Trogus Justinus,§ have no 



* Cap. ix. et x. 

t Contin. Anna!. Tigeruach. ex eod. Dub., written in the 
fifteenth century, folio iv. vol. 1. 

X Carminum I. ode xxxv. and Carminum III. ode xxiv. 
^ Lib. ii. 



134 

boundaries amongst themselves, neither do they till 
the ground, nor build themselves house or habita- 
tion, being alone occupied in feeding their flocks 
and herds, and in wandering incessantly through 
the uncultivated deserts. Their wives and children 
they carry with them in carts, covered over with 
a canopy as a shelter from the weather, and thus 
answering all the purposes of a house. They cul- 
tivate Justice more by inclination and by habit, 
than by the obligations of law. Gold or silver 
they do not covet. They live on milk and honey. 
The use of wool and of clothes is to them unknown, 
being dressed only in the skins of wild beasts. This 
course of abstinence and habitual restraint, extended 
its influence even unto the heart itself, elevating the 
tone of their moral character, and eradicating every 
extraneous and artificial desire."* Hence in Homerf 

* I will begin then to count their customes in the same 
order that I counted their nations, and first with the Scythian 
or Scottish manners. Of the which there is one use, amongst 
them, to keepe their cattle, and to live themselves the most 
part of the yeare in boolies, pasturing upon the niuuntaine, 
and waste wilde places ; and removing still to fresh land, as 
they have depastured the former. The which appeareth piaine 
to be the manner of the Scythians, as you may read in Glaus 
Magnus, and lo. Bohemus, and yet is used amongst all the 
Tartarians and the people about the Caspian Sea, which are 
naturally Scythians, to live in heards as they call them, being 
the very same, that the Irish boolies are, driving their cattle 
continually with them, and feeding onely on their milke and 
white meats. — Spenser. 

t Iliad v. 



135 

we find them called, Dikaiotatoi Anthropoi, ^* the 
most just of men." Strabo,* Herodotus,f Virgil, J 
and others, have made mention of their name, and 
equally honourable. Three things worthy of record 
are noticed by Justin § respecting them — their an- 
tiquity — their military valour || — and their having 



t iv. 

I Georg. iii. 
^ Lib. xxi. 

II The Scoti or Milesian Irish, like their kinsfolk the Scy- 
thians, when rushing to battle, made use of the war cry, 
Farragh, Farragh. *' Here is another proof that they bee 
Scythes or Scots, for in all their incounters they use one very 
common word, crying Ferragh, Ferragh, which is a Scottish 
word, to wit, the name of one of the first Kings of Scotland, 
called Feragus, or Fergus, which fought against the Pictes, 
as you may reade in Buchanan, de rebus Scoticis : but as 
others write, it was long before that, the name of their chiefs 
Captaincj under whom they fought against the Africans, the 
which was then so fortunate unto them, that ever sithence they 
have used to call upon his name in their battailes. Some, 
who (I remember) have upon the same word Ferragh, made a 
very blunt conjecture, as namely, Mr. Stanihurst, who though 
he be the same countrey man borne, that should search more 
neerly into the secret of these things ; yet hath strayed from the 
truth all the heavens wyde, (as they say,) for he thereupon 
groundeth a very grosse imagination, that the Irish should de- 
scend from the Egyptians which came into that Island, first 
under the leading of one Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, 
whereupon they use (saith he) in all their battailes to call upon 
the name of Pharaoh, crying Ferragh, Ferragh.'' — Spenser. 
It will soon be made manifest, that Mr. Spenser, himself, 
'* hath strayed from the truth all the heavens wyde,"" as to the 
origin of this war-cry. 



136 

founded the kingdom of the Parthians. To these 
we may add^ the fame of the Amazons^ a tribe of 
female warriors, who sprung up from their race^ 
whose exploits have been blazoned in every age and 
in every climate, and accompanied besides with such 
characteristics of romance, as to make some imagine 
the whole had been a fiction. In short, they were 
a nation indefatigable from the pursuits of labor and 
of war^ possessed of incalculable strength of body, 
desiring to procure nothing which they might fear 
to Ir se, and seeking nothing, when victors, but pure 
glory."* 

That the Scythians were incorporated with the 
Phoenicians, and had both together overran the 
whole of Palestine, is proved by the circumstance of 
their occupation of the city of Bethsan, which they 
called Scythopolis, after themselves — it is further 
proved by the name of Bambyx or Hierapolis, the 
modern Aleppo as some suppose, which they gave 
the city of Magog,f so called from the son of 
Japhetjj of that name, from whom the Scythians 
were descended, or in memory of its founder, who 
was supposed to have been the son of Magog, and 
to have come from the land of Magog into Syria. § 

* See more on this head in Bochart Geog. Sac. iii. 19. 
t Pliny V. 28. 
t Bochart iii. 13. 

§ Bochart attempts to prove that Magog was the same as 
Prometheus, And we know that Deucalion, the son of Pro- 



137 

Strabo* says^ that they had extended the limits of 
their empire from thence all along to Armenia and 
Cappadocia, calling Saca, a district in Armenia* 
Sacasene^ after their own name. We read, also, of 
a settlement of the Scythians in Ti'ogus, along side 
of the Thermodon, But what Thermodon means, 
we must still doubt, as it occurs in Plutarch as a 
river in Scythia ; in Philostratus, as the boundary of 
the Scythian empire. From thence they advanced 
into Cimmeria, driving out the natives wherever 



metheus, a Scythian, is said to iiave been, according to Lucian, 
the founder of the city of Magog, in Syria, and the erector 
therein of a temple to the ** Syrian Goddess." The name — 
** Magog," says Valiancy, signifies pine tree, agreeably to the 
Asiatic custom. We have a beautiful allegory of this kind in 
the annals of Inuisfallen, A. D. 1314, composed extempore 
by Turlough O'Brien, on the death of his favorite chief Donogh 
O'Dea: 

Truagh an teidhm, taining thier, rug bas borb 

Taoisseach teann dainedh dhamh, 

Donncha Don ; Tome is cial, cru mo chuirp 

Craobh dom cheill an teidhm uach. 

Dire is the loss, alas ! of late 

Upon the western shore ! 
By ruthless death, and murth'ring fate, 

A valiant chief's no more? 
Ah ! w^oe is me : my soundest sense 

And kindred friend so true ! 
My wood has lost a tow'ring branch, 

My Donoh, dear, in you! 

Translated by 0^ Flaherty, 
* De fluviis. 



138 



they went, thence to Caucasus and the Palus Maeotis, 
to the Tanais on the northern ocean, as appears 
from the testimony of Herod* and Diodorus Sicu- 
lus.f From thence they sailed over into Spain, as 
Varro, and from him Pliny, bear testimony, which 
accounts for the mention made in Silius Italicus,J 
of the Scythas or Sac« in Spain.§ Horace,|| speak- 
ing of the Cantabrians, who had been subdued by 
Agrippa, says, '* The Cantabrians, that ancient 
enemy on the Spanish coast, subdued at last by a 
long disputed victory, are subservient : the Scythians 
now meditate to quit their plains with their bows 
slackened." And they did actually quit them, first 
laying down their arms in submission to the Roman 
authorities. Such, says Seutonius,^ was the reputa- 
tion for virtue and moderation established by Au- 
gustus, all over the world, that the Indians and 
Scythians, who were not known of otherwise than 
by rumor or hearsay, were induced, of their own 
accord, to court his alliance, and that of the Roman 
people, by an authorised deputation to Rome, for 
the purpose which occasions Horace** in his saecular 



* De vita ApoUon. vii. 11, 

t ii. 

X iii. 3. 

§ iii. 3(30. 

II Carrain. lib. iii. Ode 8, 

1[ 111 Octavios, cap. xxii. 

** Carm. Soee. v. 65. 



139 

poem, to observe : " Now the Scythians, lately so 
proud, court our answer." Yes, they voluntarily 
sought after the friendship, the injunctions, and the 
laws of the Romans, which, as Justin * observes, was 
the more wonderful, inasmuch, ^' they only heard of, 
not felt, their power. "f Nay, when the empire of 
Asia was thrice threatened by invasion, the Scythians 
stood untouched, or unconquered in their native 
independence, compelling Darius, King of the Per- 
sians to retire with disgrace, making Cyrus and his 
whole army the victims of their revenge, and cutting 
to pieces the forces of Zopyrion, and himself, too, at 



* Ibidem, cap. 3. 

f All Spaine was first conquered by" the Romans, and 
filled with colonies from them, which were still increased, and 
the native Spaniard still cut off. Afterwards the Carthaginians 
in all the long Punick Warres (having spoiled all Spaine, and 
in the end subdued it wholly unto themselves) did, as it is 
likely, root out all that were afiected to the Romans. And 
lastly the Romans having againe recovered that countrey, and 
heate out Hannibal, did doubtlesse cut off all that favoured 
the Carthaginians, so that betwixt them both, to and fro, there 
was scarce a native Spaniard left, but all inhabited of Romans. 
All which tempests of troubles being over-blowne, there long 
after arose a new storme, more dreadful then all the former, 
which over-ran all Spaine, and made an infinite confusion of 
all things ; that was, the comraing downe of the Gothes, the 
Hunnes, and the Vandals: and, lastly, all the nations of 
Scythia, which, like a mountaine flood, did over-How all 
Spaine, and quite drowned and washt away whatsoever reliques 
there was left of the land-bred people, yea, and of all the 
Romans too. — Spenser. 



140 

their head, though supported by all the spirit which 
the consciousness of being general to Alexander the 
Great, must necessarily have inspired. 

That the Scythians, having now concluded a 
treaty with the Romans, proceeded from Spain to 
Ireland, is the received opinion of the historians of 
this island. Accordingly we find in an old hymn,* in 
honour of St. Columba, this expression, " that the 
Celtiberian Scythian had nothing equal to Columba." 
They first put in at the south, and took up their 
residence, finally, towards the north. Baxter f de- 
clares, that their posterity are, at this day, the 
occupiers of Valentia, and we have the authority 
of Ammianus Marcellinus and Zosimus for stating, 
that, whilst only an Irish colony, they were the 
confederates of the ancient Saxons, and successful 
ones they proved, in checking the encroachments of 
the Roman power. 

O'Flaherty, conceiving he had discovered the time 
of the arrival of the Scots from Spain, in an old 
Irish poemj of the ninth century, ascribes that event 
to the 3698th year of the Julian period, which ac- 
cording to Scaliger, would be the fifth of the reign 

* Servatur ill Bobiens. Amiphonar. an. 1200, ap. — O'Connor. 

t p.2ll. 

I The poem of Euchad O'FIoin, beginning with these words: 
" List ye learned." — It may be seen in the Dublin Library. 
O'Connor has published a fragment of it, which designated, 
under an allegorical veil, the year of the Scots or Scythians' 
arrival in Ireland. 



141 

of Solomon.* Others, tracing the matter still farther 
backjf assert, that when the Egyptians were drowned 
in the Red Sea, the survivors expelled from their 
body a Scythian of high birth who had lived 
amongst them, lest the facilities of his situation 
should foster his ambition to usurp dominion over 
them, whereupon he betook, instantly, himself, with 
his whole family, to Spain, where he lived for many 
years ; and his progeny, after him, being multiplied 
beyond the accommodation which the place could 
aflPord, proceeded from thence unto Ireland. But 
all the memorials of the Scots, says Tigernachus, up 
to the period of Alexander the Great, are vague 
and uncertain. Be it so ; yet still I cannot admit — 
Baxter's J assertion to the contrary notwithstanding — 
that, before the eighth century, there was no such 
place known in Britain as Scotia, the name by 
which Ireland is designated by the venerable Bede, 
as well as by the monk Ravennas. " Ireland," says 
Bede, '^is the proper country of the Scots, who, 
quitting it, added themselves as the third nation to 
the Picts and Britons in Britannia. Jas. Usher,§ 
also, a very distinguished writer, has furthermore 
proved, that the Romans called this island, Scotia. 
Gibbon, too, assents to this fact in his preface to his 



* O'Flaherty Ogyg. Prol. p. 34. 
f Walsingham's Hypodig. 



X p. 211 
§ Priniordia 



142 

history of the Roman empire. But it was not in 

Ireland that the Scythians were first distinguished by 
the name of Scots ; for Saint Jerom* introduces Por- 
phyry^ saying, that *^ neither did Britain, that fertile 
province in tyrants, nor the Scotic nations, and all 
the barbarous provinces round about, know any 
thing of Moses and the prophets ;" which makes 
O'Connor to conclude, that the Scotic nations then lay 
beyond the pale of the British isle. Nay, Baxter him- 
self affirms, that Scotia was so called by the Romans 
from the Scoti. Orosius,f a presbyter of Tarracona, 
who flourished in the beginning of the fifth century, 
says, that, in his own time, Ireland was inhabited by 
the nations of the Scoti ; J and St. Isidorus tells us, 
that " Ireland and Scotia are the same, being called 
Scotia, as inhabited by the Scots." " Hence, in 
after times," says Ludovicus Molina, " arose the 

* Epist. ad Elesiphontem. 

t Histor. lib. ii. 

X The most celebrated geographers agree, that ancient 
Europe was possessed by four grand classes of men, viz. the 
Celtes, who extended themselves from the Bosphorus Cimrao- 
rinus on the Euxine, to the Cimbric Chersonese of Denmark 
and the Rhine, dispersing themselves over western Europe 
and her isles ; the Scythians, who came from Persia, and 
spread from thence to the Euxine, and almost over all Europe, 
speaking the Gothic, and its kindred dialects, the Teutonic, 
the Trisic, Belgic, &c. ; the Iberi or Mauii, who came from 
Africa, and peopled Spain and Aquitain, and their language 
survives in the Cantabric or Basque x and the Sarmatae, whose 
language was the Sclavonic, and whose appearance in Europe 
was later than the others. — 3Iac Gregor, 



143 

origin of the Iberi in Ireland, who retained, as their 
characteristic, the very ancient name of Scythians or 
Scots, from whom the Spanish promontory, now 
called Finisterrae, or land's-end, was formerly desig- 
nated Scythicum or Celticum. These people removed 
themselves to Ireland from Spain, as Orosius informs 
us." 

Now, Baxter, inquiring into the etymology of the 
word Scots,* says, that the Britons, called them 
Isgwydhwyr, which, in the old scriptural style, is 
equivalent to Scoituir, or woodland men. The 
modern name, Guydhal, is the same as Brigantine, 
or woodland Gaul. For the Irish are, undoubtedly, 
a mingled race, consisting, as he says, on the one 
hand, of the Erii or barbarous natives ; on the other 
hand, of the Scots and Brigantes ; and, thirdly, of 
the Guydhali or woodland Gauls : and from this 
he accounts for the circumstance of their being so 
often designated by the British writers under the 
compound name of Scoto-Brigantes. 

Others, again, would look still higher for the 
origin of the Scythian name, and think it derived 
from their dexterity in darting the javehn, scutten, 
in the German language, signifying persons expert 



* Eginhard, secretary to Charlemagne, or, according to 
some, his son-in-law, in his annals on the year 812, informs 
us that the naval forces of the Normans landed in Ireland, the 
island of the Scots, and having given them battle, in which 
they were defeated, that those barbarians who escaped, shame- 
fully took flight, and returned to their country, ^MacGeoghegan. 



144 

in this art ; just as a portion of the Scythians were 
called Arimaspi,* that is, who close one eye, or use 
but one^f which, we all know% is the practice of 
those who aspire to any eminence in the science of 
shooting. 

It strikes me as more likely, not to say indubitable, 
that the Scythians were so called by the Phoenicians 
from the moment of their first incorporation with 
them, occupying, as they did, a great part of Syria ; 
and that they did so call them, from the fact of 
having noticed their roving propensity driving them 
on as adventurers, through hill, through dale, 
through desert, and through forest. The word 
Scythian, then, I would derive from shitin, wdiich, 
in the Phoenician language, signifies traversers, 
wanderers, or rovers, and is itself derived from shit, 
to go, surround, run about, or digress ; or, from 
shitah, to expand or dilate, either in allusion to their 
straggling, or the successful ardor with w^hich they 
extended their sway, striking terror into their foes 
by the very name of their princes, and laying low at 
their feet the most numerous armies. Saca or Sa- 
casene too, a district of Armenia, called after them, 
would seem referable to the same source ; sacac, in 
in that language, signifying to run about or walk, as 
sacah, does a roof or covering. Perhaps, if we would 
regard the justice of the nation, we may suppose 
them so designated from zaca, praiseworthy or just, or 

* Derived from Arima, one, and Spia, an eye. 
^. f Tlie better to collect the visual rays toward one focus. 



145 

zaki, blameless, irreproachable ; all which attributes 
we find briefly enumerated by Chaerilus, in his work 
called the'^Diabasis of Xerxes," saying, "The pastoral 
Sacae, a Scythian race, Asiatics who tilled the land, 
colonists belonging to the roving nation of the No- 
mades, a people who practised justice." The word 
zaca, also, means to overcome or conquer, which 
agrees well with the warlike character of the 
Scythians.* 



* Their short bowes, and little quivers with short bearded 
arrowes, are very Scythian as you may reade in the same 
Olaus. And the same sort both of bowes, quivers, and 
arrowes, are at this day to bee seene commonly amongst the 
Northerne Irish- Scots, whose Scottish bowes are not past three 
quarters of a yard long, with a string of wreathed hempe 
slackely bent, and whose arrowes are not much above halfe 
an ell long, tipped with Steele heads, made like common broad 
arrow heades, but much more sharpe and slender, that they 
enter into a man or horse most cruelly, notwithstanding that 
they are shot forth weakely. — Spenser. 

I have heard some great warriours say, that, in all the 
services which they had seene abroad in forraigne countreyes, 
they never saw a more comely man then the Irish man, nor 
that conieth on more bravely in his charge ; neither is his 
manner of mounting unseemely, though hee lacke stirruppes, 
but more ready then with stirruppes ; for, in his getting up, 
his horse is still going, whereby hee gayneth way. And there- 
fore it was called so in scoriie, as it were a stay to get up, 
being derived of the old English word sty, which is, to get up, 
or mounte. — Spenser. In fact, they were a tribe of that people 
whom Yirgil (from the Punic records) designates as ** Numdac 
infreni." 



146 



CHAP. XIII. 



The Irish Sihtri a tribe of the Phoenicians — Whether so called 
because wearing breeches — Origin of the Spanish word 
Saraguelles — Not all the Phoenicians of Ireland called 
Silures — This word implying the condition of their race, or 
their superstition — From them the island Silura so called — 
Whether there be only one such or several — Derivation of 
the word Cassiteris — Islands of that name in the Spanish 
sea — Why called Cica by the ancients. 

To the Phoenician Iberi belong also the people 
of the Silures, who had fixed their residence in the 
British isles, and of whom Tacitus thus speaks : — 
^^ Their faces are colored, their hair for the most 
part twisted, and seem to encourage the belief that 
the ancient Iberi, who lay opposite to Spain, had 
crossed over and seized themselves of these settle- 
ments."* The Iberi alluded to are of course, says 

* This he speaketh touching the Silures which inhabited that 
part of South Wales, which now we call Herefordshire, Rad- 
norshire, Brecknockshire, Monmouthshire, and Glamorgan- 
shire. And although the like reason may be given for that 
part of Ireland which lyeth next unto Spaine, yet in Tacitus 
we find no such inference. Buchanan, indeed, upon the con- 



147 

Bochart^ those of Tartasus, who were a colony of 
the Phoenicians, for these alone possessed either the 
spirit or the skill requisite for navigation, and the 
transplanting of colonies into distant countries. 
And as there will be an effort, no doubt, to scoop 
the origin of the word Silures from the vowels of the 
Phoenician language, the learned, says he, well 
know that the inhabitants of the British isles, as well 
as the Gauls, were accustomed to wear breeches. 



jecture of Tacitus, hath these words. *' Verisimile autem non 
est Hispanos relicta k tergo Hibernia, terra propiore, & coeli 
Sc soli mitioris, in Albiuni prirailrn descendisse, sed primCini in 
Hiberniam appulisse, atque inde in Britannia colonos missos." 
Which was observed unto me by the most learned Bishop of 
Meth, Dr. Anth. Martin, upon conference with his lordship 
about this point. One passage in Tacitus touching Ireland 
(in the same booke) I may not heere omit, although it be extra 
oleas. '* Quinto expeditionuni anno (saith he) nave prim^ 
transgressus, ignotas ad tempus gentes, crebris simul ac pros- 
peris praeli is domuit, eamque partem Britannia quai Hiberniam 
aspicit, copiis instruxit, in spem magis quam ob formidinem. 
Siquidem Hibernia medio inter Britanniam aque Hispaniam, 
sita, & Gallico quocjue mari opportuna valentissimam imperij 
partem magnis invicem usibus miscuerit. Spatiuin ejus si 
Britannia comparetur, angustius, nostri maris insulas superat. 
Solum coelumque & ingenia, cultusq ; hominum hiiut multilm 
h. Britannia diH'erunt, rneliiis aditus portusq ; per commercia <& 
negotiatorea cogniti. Agricola expulsum seditione domestica 
unum ex regulis gentis exceperat, ac specie amicitai in occa- 
sionem retinebat. Sajpe ex eo audivi Legione una & modicis 
auxilijs debellari, obtinerique Hiberniam posse. Idque ad- 
versCis Britanniam profuturum, si Tlomana ubique arma, <Sc 
velut e conspectu Ubertas toUeretur." — Sir James Ware. 



148 

For this he quotes Martial* — " As an old pair of 
breeches belonging to a poor Briton." Then he 
takes shelter in the language of the Arabians, in 
which sirwal, and sarawuel, from which again comes 
the Spanish word saraguelles, signify all one and the 
same thing, namely, a pair of breeches. Sirwalin, 
therefore, in the Arabic, signified persons who wore 
this article of dress. From this the Romans, says 
he, by transposition, gave the name of Silures to 
those Phoenicians who had settled in Ireland, as a 
mark of distinction between them and the rest of 
their race, just as a part of Gaul, where the use of 
this article prevails, is called Braccata from that 
very circumstance — -such is Bochart's opinion. 

To me, however, it appears more likely that not 
all the Phoenicians who had come over to those 
islands, but only a few of their tribes, the lowest 
and the poorest, got the denomination of Silures 
from the rest of their fraternity, and that not from 
an Arabian term relating to dress, but a Phoenician 
one, purporting obscurity and meanness of origin. 
For zeluth, in the Phoenician, means vileness or con- 
temptibility, as generally applied to the rabble ; and 
zaluth, impurities, filthiness. Thus much respecting 
their condition as a caste. But if you would prefer 
referring it to the superstition of the whole nation, 
it is evident that in this point of view we may derive 

* 11 Epigr. 22. 



149 

Silures from the words zil 'ur, that is worshippers of 
the sun or fire ; for or^ as well as ur, both in the 
Hebrew and Syriac languages, signify the sun, to 
blaze, or any luminous body. In this sense we find 
it in Job,* where he says, " If I have seen the sun 
(or) when he shone ;" and in Nehemiahf — '' From 
the morning (or) even unto the mid-day," that is 

* Men have, in all ages, been convinced of the necessity of 
an intercourse between God and themselves, and the adoration 
of God supposes him to be attentive to men's desires, and, 
consistent with his perfections, capable of complying with 
them. But the distance of the sun and moon is an obstacle to 
this intercourse. Therefore foolish and inconsiderate men 
endeavoured to remedy this inconvenience, by laying their 
hands on their mouths, and then lifting them up to their false 
gods, in order to testify that they would be glad to unite them- 
selves to them, notwithstanding their being so far separated. 
We have a striking instance of this in the book of Job, which, 
properly attended to, will throw a considerable light on ancient 
Pagan idolatry. Job was a native of the confines of Assyria, 
and being one of those who believed in the true God, says, in 
his own vindication, *' If I beheld the sun while it shined, or 
the moon walking in brightness ; and my heart hath been 
secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand," Slq. 
Job xxxi. 26, 27. 

This was a solemn oath, and the ceremony performed in the 
following manner : 

The person who stood before his accusers or before the 
judge's tribunal, where he was tried, bowed his head and 
kissed his hand three times, and looking up to the sun, invoked 
him as an Almighty Being, to take the highest vengeance upon 
him if he uttered a falsehood. — Hurd. 

t viii. 3. 



150 

from sunrise till noon ; and from this it was that 
Apollo was called Orus by the heathens. It also, as 
I have intimated, signifies fire, lit and blazing, and 
by synechdoche, the hearth wherein it blazes, in 
which acceptation it occurs in Isaiah — " In the blaze 
(or) of your fire." As to zila, it means to pray to, 
or worship, as ziluth does prayer, adoration. The 
introduction into this country of the Phoenician 
usage of worshipping the sun and fire, is a point 
beyond dispute, as we shall make by and bye more 
manifest. 

From the Silures is named the island of Silura, 
separated, by a turbid strait, from the coast, which 
is inhabited, as Solymus informs us, by a British 
face, the Dumnonii. There are those who would 
name as the islands of the Silures, or the Silenae, 
what we at this day call the Scilly Isles, and the 
Belgians the Sorlings ; and which Camden enumer- 
ates to the amount of about one hundred and forty- 
five, more or less, being circularly arranged, and 
about eight leagues distant from the extreme cape 
of Cornwall : these have been otherwise called by 
the ancients Cassiterides, from the tin in which they 
abounded ; Hesperides, from their western locality ; 
and Ostrymnidae, from the promontory of Ostrym- 
nus, in Artabria, to which they are opposite. Now 
there is no one so unacquainted with history as not 
to know that the Phoenicians exported an immense 



151 



quantity of tin from those islands. They alone,* as 
Strabo informs us, had repaired thither, from Gades, 
on those commercial speculations, studiously, the 
while, concealing their schemes from all others ; 
which Bochart confirms by several collateral testi- 
monies. This tin they used to ship off to Syria 
and Arabia. And we find in Numbers xxxi. 22, how 
much it was sought after by the Midianites ; and in 
Job xix. 24, by the Arabians. Of which see at 
large in W. Cooke, p. 23 ; Pliny Nat. Hist. vii. 56. 
Take care, however, that we do not confound 
these islands with the Cassiteridesf in the Spanish 
sea, right opposite to Baiona of Tudium, which are 
supposed, by some, to have been so denominated 
from the immense rocks with which they are sur- 
rounded, called by the Greek inhabitants of Spain 



* From some passages in Plutarch, O'HaHoran offers a 
conjecture, that the sacra et delecta cohors of the Carthaginians, 
mentioned by Diodorus and others, was a select body of Irish 
troops in the pay of that people. From the time of the Scipios 
until the reign of Augustus, a space of more than two hundred 
years, Spain struggled with the Romans for independence ; and 
we may naturally suppose, that as Ireland was but a few days' 
sail from Spain, they had auxiliaries from thence, and that the 
Carthaginians had them also. Hannibal's army was mostly 
made up of foreign troops, a great part of which he brought 
from Spain after the taking of Saguntum. — 31ac Grcyor. 

t This name is derived from Kassitera, the Greek for tin ; 
being the translation of Bara anac, which, in Phoenician, sig- 
nifies the land of tin; and from this again the word Britannia 
would seem to be immediately formed. 



152 

Cica, from cicos, which in their language signifies 
strength, a stronghold, or fortress ; whilst others, 
with more probability, think it a Phoenician name 
given to those islands before ever the Grecians set a 
foot in Spain, and from the same circumstance as 
the other islands of the same name were denomi- 
nated, namely, their tin mines, cicar or kicar, in the 
Syriac, signifying metal of any kind. 



CHAP. XIV. 



The VodicBy in what section of Ireland they had settled — 
Whether they were of the race of the Erigence, or a tribe of 
the Phoenicians — Conjecture upon the Etymology of the 
name — Vodie the country called Dergteachneagh— Origin of 
this word — The Lucani, or Luceni, a people of Ireland — 
This name supposed originally Irish — Where they settled — 
Whether different from the Lugadii — Whence the name 
Slioght — Lucus and Lucena cities of Spain — Conjecture on 
the Phoenician origin of the Luceni — Fire worshipped amongst 
the Phoenicians — The promontory of Notium. 

The Vodiae, or Vodii, were, according to Ptolemy, 
an ancient people of Ireland, contiguous, on the west, 
to the Brigantes in the county Cork, being the same 
as the Mediterranean Momonienses ; what you 



153 

would call in English, says Baxter,* the woodland 
folk, and consequently of the primitive stock of the 
Erigenae, or real natives. Vydhieu, or Guydhieu, 
means woods at this very day amongst the Britons. 
Others would interpret Vydhieu as people living in 
woody places by the water side ; for in Ptolemy we 
also read of a place called Vodie, which the Irish 
writers call Dergtenii, or Dergteachneagh,— and give 
us to understand it means a woody habitation beside 
a lake, — comprising the southern coast of the county 
Cork, namely, the old baronies of Corcaduibhne, 
Corcabhaisin, and Corcahuigne.f 

It may be worth the attention of the learned men 
of this country to see whether the Vodise were not 
one of the Phoenician tribes who had settled here ; 
for Bohodi in the Phoenician language meant a con- 
gregated clan ; as you would say, stop with me, live 
with me ; from whence, in the Arabic, bahad, he 
stopped, or sojourned, and badi, the origin of a 
race, the introduction of a family, a congregation. 
This conjecture is supported by the name of the 
country called Dergteachneagh, being, as I imagine, 
an abbreviation from Derc-teachin-agch, which sig- 
nifies travellers, or strangers, in a wilderness ; for 
derc means he walked, teachin, living or lurking in a 
lonely place, and agah, he passed the night. Derg- 



* p. 253. 

I See Collect, de Reb. Ibein. vol. iii. i>. :333. 



154 

tenii sounds like that language too, derc-tenar mean- 
ing in it a rocky road, and derc-tenin a road on 
which men, or beasts of burden, carry provisions or 
other merchandise. 

The Lucanii, or Luceni, are to be found also in 
Ptolemy as an ancient people in this island, of whom 
Orosius also makes mention. Richard Cirencester 
says, that their settlement lay in the county Kerry, 
near the bay of Dingle.* The name is supposed to 
be compounded of the two Irish words lugh-aneigh, 
meaning the inhabitants of a district adjoining a 
lake, or sea, what you would call, says Baxter, mari- 
gene, or sea-born. This gentleman imagines that 
these were originally a colony of the Dumnonian 
Belgae, and that they gave their name to the pro- 
vince of Lugenia, or Leinster, which certainly does 
sound very like the land of the Lugeni, and in after 
times had advanced farther into the interior, into 
Momonia, or the province of Munster. Seward,f 
and others more modern, J suppose that they were 
the Lugadii, who, according to the old Irish writers, 
inhabited the south-western coasts, extending from 



* This remote town in the province of Mun^>ter was once of 
considerable importiince. The Spaniards held a direct inter- 
course with the place, and built many private residences there, 
besides the parish church, &c. Queen Elizabeth granted to it 
a charter in 1585. 

t Seward, Topogr. Ibern. A pp. II. p. 8. 

t Vid. Collect, de Reb. Ibern. loc. laud. p. 381. 



155 

Waterford harbour along to the mouth of the river 
Shannon. The name of Lugadii to the natives was 
equivalent with sliocht lugach macithy, that is, a 
maritime race of dwellers by the water. Yet, sliocht, 
may perhaps be of Phoenician root, coming from 
shHc, a neighbour ; in this sense, too, we shall find 
ourselves at home, for slioght, in Irish,* signifies 
alliance or kindred. 

But Baxter, descanting upon the origin of the 
word Lacanii, or Luceni, says, aug, by the old 
Britons, was understood for the liquor of water, and 
thus for the sea, whilst geni, or eni, meant descent. 



* It is well known that in Munster and Connaught, in the 
western parts of Ulster, and the south of Leinster, this ancient 
dialect is spoken most extensively; and although many of the 
native Irish are sufficiently acquainted with the English 
tongue to use it for the purpose of daily traffic, and mere busi- 
ness, yet it is in their beloved Celtic that they think, through 
that they feel, and by that they communicate to each other the 
deep purposes of present revenge, and future triumph. It is 
no random assertion, but an authenticated fact, that among 
the most abject poor, who cut turf on the bogs, or break stones 
for the roads of those districts, the proudest legends of their 
country's former glory, and the prowess of her native chiefs, 
couched in language the most exciting that can be conceived, 
are frequently repeated ; together with the wild prophetic 
rhymes of gifted bards, handed down orally from father to 
child, predicting the re-appearance of that sun which they con- 
ceive to have set beneath the dark night of English usurpation. 
Those who have studied the Irish language concur in pronoun- 
cing it to be most richly and powerfully expressive, highly 
figurative. — Charlotte Elizabeth. 



156 

or to be descended. Hence he infers that the 
Saxon pirates were called by the Britons Lhoegyr, 
corruptly for Luguir^ or seamen, and from this, he 
says, comes the modern name of Anglia or England ; 
Ihuch, in Britain, signifying at this day a lake, as 
loch does in Ireland. 

If one may indulge conjecture in a matter not 
very clear, I should think myself near the true ex- 
traction of this name by deriving it from lucus, a 
grove, which we know those were in the habit of 
resorting to, nay, of worshipping. In this case we 
may seek for the origin of slioght in the Phoenician 
slocah, or sliocah, which signifies divinity. But this 
I do not like, for the people called Luceni, or Lu- 
canii, existed before the time of the Romans, which 
would make it incongruous to take as a parallel in- 
stance the name of the Spanish city, Lucus, now 
Lugo, in the country of the Gallaici, which must be 
acknowledged to be designated from those religious 
haunts. Therefore, as well as Lucene, the name of 
a Phoenician town in Boetia, I should suppose it 
comes from lushen, or leshen, a word of very various 
significations, all of which, however, spontaneously 
apply to this people. First it is a people or nation ; 
secondly a difference of language or dialect, which 
we know to prevail amongst the several tribes of 
Syria. The Ephratagi, for instance, could not arti- 
culate the double letter, sh, instead of which they 
would pronounce it in its single form, s, which may 



157 

have proceeded either from the air or local influence. 
Thus we find that when, in Judges xii. they were 
obliged to say shibboleth, a river, they could only 
call it sibboleth. The Boetians of my country, also, 
pronounce z instead of s, calling it zabana instead of 
sabana. The Gallacians, too, differ from the other 
provinces of Spain, not in pronunciation alone, but 
in many other peculiarities of language. The same 
may be observed by every one in the idiom of his 
native country. But to return. It means, in the 
third place, a flame of fire, which would seem at 
once to point us to the practice of their worshipping 
this element in their sacred groves, a practice, I may 
add, which the Chaldagans, the Persians, the Medes, 
and other nations of Asia, shared in common with 
the Phoenicians, who offered sacrifice to fire after the 
custom of the Persians,* at first only worshipping it 



* When the Persians drew near to their consecrated fires in 
their divine service, they always approached them from the 
west side, because by that means their faces being turned to 
those as well as the rising sun, they could direct their worship 
towards both at the same time. * * The priests are 
obliged to watch day and night to maintain and repair the con- 
secrated fire. But it is absolutely necessary that it be re- 
kindled after the purest manner that can possibly be devised ; 
for which purpose they frequently make use of a steel and flint, 
or two hard sticks, which, by continual friction, will in time 
take fire. Sometimes, likewise, they kindle it by the light- 
ning which darts down from heaven on any combustible 
matter ; and sometimes again by those ignes fatni which fre- 
quently arise in marshy grounds; or else by common lire, in 



158 

as a type or symbol of the Deity, but so, however, 
that gradually, and at last, this commemoration, and, 
as such, innocent adoration, degenerated and sunk 
into actual and downright worship of the element 
itself.* This superstition they imported into Ireland, 
as they did into Spain, and their other colonies. 

But as this people had established their settle- 
ment in the country by the promontory of Notium, 
I should not think it at all unlikely that they derived 
their name from that very fact, for lushen, or leshen, 
in the Syriac, is a cape, or oblong and mountainous 
tongue of land jutting out into the sea. 

The name of the Lugadii would seem to be equi- 
valent with that of allies, for luahin, in the Phoeni- 
cian, implies association or union. Or they might 
have got this name from luch, or lach, meaning 
sturdy youths, valiant warriors, in conformity with 
lucadin, the stormers of towns ; whence evidently is 
derived laochd, the Irish designation for an armed 
soldiery, as well as lugh, active, and luch, a captive 
in battle. We find, besides, that laga, which signi- 
fies renown, or pre-eminent distinction, was an usual 
adjunct to the names of many of the leading families 



case it is pure and undetiled, or with such as the Banians make 
use of to kindle the funeral piles. Cut they have one other 
method still, as noble as it is pure ; and that is, by collecting 
the rays of the sun into the focus of a burning-glass. — Hard. 

* Theodoret. Hist. Eccl. V. 38. S. Isidor. Hispal. Orig. 
XIV. 3. Cons. Voss. De Orig. et Progr. Idolol. II. 64. 



159 

of this island, as Lughaidh-laigha, Mac moglia 
nuadhat. 'Richardson makes mention of a cele- 
brated tribe of the Arabians, called Legah, or Lukah, 
that never acknowledged the dominion of a tyrant, 
or bent with abject and hmniliating prostration to 
the inhmiian attitude of slavery. Nor would the 
conjecture be altogether without ground if, after 
all our peregrination and excursive research for 
the origin of the name of this people, we would at 
last turn home, and look for it in the Irish word 
lughadh, meaning the interposition of an oath,* and 
which would indicate their compactness as a social 
body ; or in lughad, scantiness, as if they were but 
few ; or, finally, in luchd, a tribe or assemblage. 

* According to the annals of Ulster, cited by Ware, the 
usual oath of Laogare IT., King of Ireland, in the time of 
St. Patrick, was by the sun and wind. The Scythians swore 
by the wind, and sometimes by a scymeter or cutlas, in use 
among the Persians, upon which was engraven the image of 
Mars. — Mac Geogheyan. 



160 



CHAP. XV. 



The Voluntii—In what part of Ireland settled — Various 
opinions as to the etymology of this name — As also of the 
names Ull, Ullah, and Thuath — Conjecture with respect to 
their origin being Phoenician — Country of the Blanii — Eb- 
lana the ancient name for Dublin — Derivation of this name 
— JSbelinum, an ancient city of Spain — The toivn of B lane 
— Origin of both names. 

The Voluntii or Bol until mentioned by Ptolemy, 
were an ancient people in Ireland^ situated on the 
east of the Luceni, who took up their quarters in a 
tract of the county Down, which Baxter thinks is 
so called at the present day, by corruption, for the 
land of the Voluntii ; aS;, also, that the Britons had 
called them Boluntii, as if from Bol or Yol-unte, 
that is the farther head-land or Vennicnium. 

Others think it a degenerated term, from UU-an- 
teigh, which they- explain by the inhabitants of the 
county of Ull. But teigh, in Irish, means a house 
or shelter. Ull is, indeed, a district in this island, 
mentioned by Ptolemy, and called by the Irish 



161 

writers who have touched upon this point, Ullagh, 
and also Ullad. This word some would derive from 
Thuat-all-adh, a northern section of the county of 
Ull, which formerly was the modern province of 
Ulster, but was afterwards circumscribed to the 
single county of Down. Our old poems and chro- 
nicles call the inhabitants of this tract, Tuath de 
Donans,and understand thereby the northern people,* 
of intrepid bravery ; for tuath, in Irish, means not 
only a people, but the north: and dan, brave, 
intrepid. 

To my mind Boluntii is a name of Pha3nician ex- 
traction, derived very probably from the quality of 
the ground ; in that language, bolun means a glebe 
or gleby land, as it does, also, fruit and the shoots 
of palm trees : or, with still more appearance of 
probability, we may derive it from the superstitious 
worship of that nation, bolinthis or belinthis meaning 
the immolation of he-goats to the idols of Baal, and 
bohntir, his augurs or soothsayers. Akin to this is 
the gentile Spanish name of Bolontii or Bolonii, in- 
habitants of the old city of Bolona, built by the 
Phoenicians in the straits of Gibraltar, by the pillars 
of Hercules. 

But Ull, too, savors very strongly of the Phoenician 
tongue, in which it literally signifies fortitude, 
whence el, brave, powerful, and also an idol in 

* Vid. Collect, (le Rel). Ibern. vol. iii. p. 424, 42^* 

M 



162 

Isaiah. * With this acceptation agrees the name of 
Ullagh, for olagh in the Syriac means an idol as 
olaha does a goddess, by which name the Phoenici- 
ans chose to designate Diana of the Ephesians, as 
appears from the Syriac version of the Acts 'of the 
Apostles.f I would not, indeed, deny but that the 
origin of tuath, may be essentially Irish ; but it is 
worthy of remark, that the word thohath, conveyed 
to the Phoenician mind the idea of a low ground, or 
skirt of a country, which is in perfect keeping with 
the situation of the province of Ulster, where the 
Voluntii settled, being encompassed almost on all 
sides by the sea. J 

On the borders of the Boluntii, in the eastern 
section of Ireland, the Blanii or Eblanii — whose name 
is supposed to be composed of the Irish words, ebb 
or aobb, a region or tract, and lean, a harbour, 
bearing evident allusion to their propinquity to the 
sea§ — had formed their establishment. The universal 
opinion of the learned goes to prove that from them 
the city of Dublin, the metropolis of this once 
flourishing and imperial kingdom, hath obtained in 
Ptolemy the name of Eblanum, which gave rise to 



* Isai. xliv. 10. '* Quis formavit Deuni, et sculptile for- 
mavit ad nihil utile ?" 
t Act. Apostol. xix. 37. 
I Vid. Seward. Topogr. Ibern. V. Ulster. 
§ Collect, de Reb. Ibern. ibid, p. 342. 



163 

that of Eblinii or Ebhleaneigh, generally rendered 
inhabitants by the water-side.* Of these we find 
mention made by the ancient chronologers of Ire- 
land, amongst the population of the county Dublin ; 
though others would place them in the county 
Limerick, and derive the name from ebhluin, a 
mediterranean region, or one widely separated from 
the sea.f 

He will not be far astray, who thinks that both 
Blanii and Eblani are Celtic terms, seeing that in 
that language we meet with the word ebelin, in the 
sense of a people or habitation alongside a river. I 
incline, however, to the belief, that they are of 
Phoenician birth, derived from eblin, uncultivated 
wilds, or hebelin, idols, from which in a former 
treatise I have taken upon myself to deduce Ebeli- 
num, the name of an ancient city in Celtiberia, in 
Spain, on the ruins of which it is supposed that the 
town of Ayerbe is now erected. From the same 
source would I derive the name of Blanes, another 
Spanish town amongst the Ilergetes on the coast of 
the Mediterranean, called by Nubiensis in his geo- 
graphical work, Eblanessa, although some would fliin 
have it of Grecian root, from balanos, an oak; or 
planes, a wanderer ;J whilst others, again, would 



* V. Burg, Ibern. Dominic, p. 185, 187. 
t Collect, de Ileb. Iberii. ibid. 

I Wlien the daring adventurer, or one of the children of 
want, seeks, in a foreign land, tliat fortune which is denied him 

M 2 



164 

ascribe it to the Celtic words— blaen-ess, meaning 
a promontory in the water. 



CHAP. XVL 



The Erdinii — Where settled— Whether the same as the Ernai 
— Etymology of the word — Vestiges of them in some of the 
Irish towns — Similar geographical names in Spain — The 
Venicnii conterminous with the Erdinii — The promontory of 
Venicniuzn called after them, not they from the promontory-^ 
Conjecture upon the origin of this word as Phoenician — why 
the Spanish promontories Juno's and Gora, called Celtic, 
and Scythic. 

The Erdinii, an ancient people of Ireland, situated 
according to Ptolemy, on the north of the promon- 
tory of Robogdium, in the southern section of the 
counties of Donegal and Fermanagh, are called 
Hardinii, in the writings of Richard Cirencester. 



at home, and braves perils by land and by sea, for a bit of 
bread, he is cheered by the hope that he may be enabled, one 
day, to return to home and country with the fruit of his hard and 
hazardous toil, to spin out the remnant of life's thread in the 
land of his nativity, and to pillow his head in the lap of his 
native earth. — Viscount Glcntworth. — Arliss's Mag. Sep. 1832. 



165 

Their name some would deduce from the Irish ex- 
pressions, eir dunedh, that is, a mountainous people, 
or inhabitants of mountains, in the west ; and think 
them the same as the nation which the Irish anti- 
quarians call Ernai, that is a western people, or 
rather the primitive aboriginal natives of the soil, 
for Erin used for Erie, is Ireland, as Erionnach is 
an Irishman. 

I should prefer, however, to consider them a 
haughty, arrogant and overbearing tribe of the 
Phoenicians, who obtained this name from erdin or 
eradin, w^hich signifies, Hectors, from rod, he domi- 
neered or bore haughty sway. This nation appears 
formerly to have inhabited several districts of Spain, 
which to this day retain their vestiges ; for instance, 
Ardines and Ardon, amongst the Astures ; Ardanue, 
Ardanui, and Ardanas, in Celtiberias ; Ardanaz, in 
Cantabria, and Ardon and Ardona, in Gallacia. 
From thence, too, it is very probable, that the town 
of Ardinan, at the mouth of the river Ban, in the 
province of Ulster, whither they had first introduced 
their colonies, hath derived its name, as well as 
Ardicnice, a village of the same : Ardoyne, a little 
town in the county Wicklow, and Erinach, another 
town in Ulster, celebrated from its spring well, de- 
dicated to St. Fionan; beside which was erected in 
the beginning of the twelfth century, a monastery, 
called by the old name of Carrig, from the immense 
cliff' adjacent ; for carraic, in Irish, is a rock, from 



166 

the Phoenician carric, fortified. Perhaps to the 
same origin belongs Artane, the name of a very 
delightful village in Leinster, although it might 
have been derived from Araa-tanar, stony or flinty 
ground, corresponding with the Irish arteine or ar- 
tine, of the same signification. 

Conterminous with the Erdinii were the Venicnii 
or Benicnii, ancient residents of Ireland, noticed 
also by Ptolemy, situated by the promontory of 
Venicnium, on the western coast of the county 
Donegal, the Ergal of the ancients. Some imagine 
that they were so called from this same promontory 
alluded to in the last chapter, which Camden thinks 
equivalent with the English words, ram's head ; 
Venictium being, by the authority of Baxter, dege- 
nerated from Vendne-cniu, which, in the old dialect 
of the Brigantes, indicates the head of a young 
ram ; cniu, to a British ear, conveying the idea of 
the young of almost every animal, in the plural 
number. 

It strikes me, however, as more like the truth, 
that they did not take their name from the promon- 
tory, but that the promontory, on the contrary, was 
denominated from them ; as that which we now call 
Cape Finisterre, on the Cantabrian coast, w^as called 
Scythic and Celtic, from those respective nations ; 
and that which the Arabians in after times called 
Taraf-al-garr, signifying a perilous extremity or 
point, the modern Trafalgar, lying on the maritime 



167 

coast of Boetica, between Calpe and the straits of 
Gibraltar, was called by the Greeks the promontory 
of Juno, their favorite deity ; and as the modern 
Cabo de Gata was called by the Phoenician settlers 
upon the Mediterranean coast of Spain, the Cape 
of Gora ; for gor, in the Syriac, intimates a stranger 
or foreigner taking up his abode in another place 
than where ^he was born, a sojourner ; whence the 
Greek georos, a neighbour, a tiller. 

As to the people themselves, whether Venicnii or 
or Benicnii, they appear to me to have been a tribe 
of the Phoenicians, and to have got this name from 
Kini, which imports, of a Cinnaean stock, or from the 
land of Canaan : benikini consequently implying a 
tribe from such a stock. Nor is it at all unlikely but 
that there might have been an additional motive for 
this name, suggested by the frankness of those 
people's demeanor and the purity of their moral 
character,* for, in this language, beni-enin means 



* Such appear to be the general principles and outlines of 
the popular faith, not only among the Greeks, but among all 
other primitive nations, not favored by the lights of Revela- 
tion : for though the superiority and subsequent universality of 
the Greek language, and the more exalted genius and refined 
taste of the early Greek poets, have preserved the knowledge 
of their sacred mythology more entire ; we find traces of the 
same simple principles and fanciful superstructures from the 
shores of the Baltic to the banks of the Ganges : and there can 
be little doubt that the voluminous poetical cosmogonies still 
extant among the Hindoos, and the tragnienls preserved of 



168 



I 



upright and righteous dwellers^ whether of town or 
country, from kian or kina, just and true, in which 
sense we meet it in the Syriac version of the gospel 
according to St. Matthew : — and Joseph, her hus- 
band, was (kina) a just man. As to beni, it is a term 
applied not only to sons, but to the residents of any 
particular place, which by a very natural association 
may be considered as their mother, being there born 
or educated. Thus in Ezekiel, xvi. 28, the people 
of Assyria are called beni,, or the sons, of Assur ; 
and in Jeremiah, ii. 10, the Memphians are called 
Veni, or the sons, of Noph. The word is, also, 
referred to the condition or morals of the persons 
alluded to, as in the third chapter of the Acts, and 
25th verse, the Israelites with whom God had con- 
cluded a covenant by the form of circumcision, are 
styled the sons of the prophets and of the testament, 
and in other passages throughout the sacred volume 
and elsewhere, the wicked are designated as the sons 



those of the Scandinavians, may afford us very competent ideas 
of the style and subjects of those ponderous compilations in 
verse, which constituted the mystic lore of the ancient priests 
of Persia, Germany, Spain, Gaul, and Britain ; and which in 
the two latter countries were so extensive, that the education of 
a druid sometimes required twenty years. From the specimens 
above mentioned, we may, nevertheless, easily console our- 
selves for the loss of all of them as poetical compositions, 
whatever might have been their value in other respects.— 
Kiiigkt. 



169 

of wickedness ;* the unjust, as the sons of injustice ; 
and warriors, by the expressive circumlocution of 
sons of strength, or hearts of oak. 



* All we shall here add is, that those who have been the 
most irreligious in this world, formed their notions upon the 
inequality of rewards and punishments. AVere all the wicked 
to suffer just punishments in this life, and all the virtuous to be 
rewarded, what occasion would there be for a future judgment? 
In many cases God has shewn himself to be at the head of 
divine providence, but not in all ; to convince men, that how- 
ever hardened they may be in wickedness while in this world, 
yet there may be a time, or a period, when the mask of 
hypocrisy will be laid aside ; nay, it will be stripped off, and 
the daring sinner will stand as a culprit at the bar of infinite 
justice. On the other hand, the oppressed virtuous man 
should rest satisfied in this, that God will be his friend at the 
last day, notwithstanding all the sufl'erings he may have been 
subjected to in this world ; for it is an established maxim both 
in natural and revealed religion, that the upright judge of the 
universe, will not deceive his creatures. — Hurd, 



170 



CHAP. XVII. 



The Caucii — Various opinions as to their exact settlement — 
Others of the same name amongst the Germans — Whether 
they derived this name from their stature — Ancient inscription 
of the Cumbri —Interpretation thereof — Their name Phoeni- 
cian or Celtic — Cauca an ancient city of Spain — The ancient 
Menapii, where settled — Menappia the modern Waterford — 
Various opinions on the origin of their name — Whether they 
were Phoenicians — Customs of idolaters to call themselves 
and their people after their deities and the worship of them — • 
Aphrodisia, Portus Veneris, and Artemisia, ancient cities 
of Spain — The Isles of Momce — Evolenum — Coulan. 

Ptolemy makes mention of another ancient people 
of this island, the Caucii, whose residence he defines 
as on the east of the Cape Robogdimn. Cirencester 
places them in the county Dublin, between the sand- 
banks of the river LifFey and the northern sections 
of the county Wicklow. Others assert that they had 
settled in the mountainous districts situated between 
the rivers Barrow and Nore, called in the old Irish 
dialect Hy Breoghain Gabhran, which they translate 
an elevated country between forks.* 

There were also, amongst the ancient Germans, 
two distinct people of this name, distinguished as 

* Collect, de Reb. Ibeiii. loc. laud. p. 305. 



171 

the greater and the lesser, of whom the former, we 
are told by Ptolemy, inhabited that part of the 
country between the Elb and the Wesser ; the latter 
from the Wesser all along to the Emse. We find, 
too, that the ancient Spaniards could boast of their 
Caucii, in the district of the Vaccei, whose princi- 
pal city was Cauca, placed by Antoninus as sixteen 
days' journey, or on the sixteenth station on the 
road from Emerita to Caesar Augusta. 

Some suppose that they had obtained this name 
from their extraordinary stature ; for cauc in the 
old British, and coc in the Brigantine, and hauch, or 
hoch, in the German, all imply one and the same 
thing, namely, lofty, or high. Hence, Baxter con- 
jectures, had been borrowed the inscription found 
amongst the ancient Cumbri, the Ceangi of the 
Brigantes, " To the god Cocis," which is supposed 
to have been executed in fulfilment of a vow to the 
genius of the river, at this day called Coque in the 
country of the Otonidae. 

But is it not possible that those Caucii may have 
been Celts,* cau, in their language, signifying a river ? 
This, however, I do not like, as I think it more 
likely that they were one of the tribes of the Phoe- 
nicians who had landed in Ireland from Spain ; 
whose name, like that of the Spanish city Cauca, I 
conceive borrowed from the temperature of the 

* The name of geilt, ceilt, or keilt, which signifies terror, a 
wikl man or woman, a sylvcstrous person ; and hence I ^hiuk 
the name, Celt. — Vallancey. 



172 

climate in which they had fixed themselves. This 
opinion I form from observing in the Phoenician 
language that cauzz, or coz, signifies the summer 
season^ from which cauzzi, a summer residence ; 
and with this corresponds cauc^ or coc, old age, 
infirmity, or a country adapted from the mildness 
of its air to renovate the energies, at least allay the 
irritation, of the aged and enfeebled.* 

The Manapii, or Menapii, were also an ancient 
people of Ireland, on its eastern coast, being a por- 
tion of the Brigantes Coriondi, in the city of Mana- 
pia, or Waterford, as Camden thinks, in which he 
is supported by the authority of Baxter. Others 
would have it that they were the inhabitants of the 
county Wicklow, the chief town of which bearing 
the same name, the Euobenum of Probus, they 
maintain to have been the ancient Manapia. They 
further state that they had taken up their settlement 
between the mountains and the sea, in that part of 
the country now called Coulan, Cuolan, or Crioch 
Cuolan, which means, says Seward, a close and con- 
fined tract, or as others prefer a corn country. 

Many persons derive the name of those people 
from the old British words, Mene-ui-pou, a narrow 
region, with which Coulan above mentioned almost 
corresponds. Others think that they took their name 
from the city of Manapia, which they say is com- 
pounded of the British words, Mant-ab, signifying 
the mouth of the water. 



Regio senibus apta. 



173 

But to my ear their name sounds the certainty of 
their Phoenician descent. I had formerly supposed 
that it had been derived from Mana-pip, a double 
portion or part of some tribe or nation ; but as the 
Syrians had a custom of denominating themselves 
and their people from their idols, and their super- 
stitious worship of them, I am more disposed now 
to think they were so called from Mani-apiin, which 
means, adorning with branches or flowers a multi- 
tude of idols, or singly, that of Mercury, which 
Mani also signifies, and whom the Phoenicians wor- 
shipped as the god of calculation. That this custom 
prevailed also amongst the ancient Greeks and Ro- 
mans, we have numerous proofs in the geographi- 
cal names of Spain. Thus, from Afrodite, the 
Greek name for Venus, and Afrodisios, which means 
belonging to Venus, Timoeus and Silenus have given 
the name of Afrodisia to the ancient city of Gades 
in Boetica, which was contiguous to the site of the 
present city of Cadiz. From her also the Romans 
gave the name of Portus Veneris, or the harbour of 
Venus,* to that maritime city of the Ilergetes, which 



Who would not sigh ai at tan Cuthereian !' 
That hath a memory, or that had a heart ? 

Alas ! her star must fade like that of Dian ; 
Ray fades on ray, as years on years depart. 

Anacreon only had the soul to tie an 

Unwithering myrtle round the blunted dart 

Of Eros : but though thou hast played us many tricks, 

Still we respect thee, ** Alma Venus Genetrix !" 

Byron. 



174 



is at this day corruptly called Porvendres. From 
Artemis, Diana, the Greeks gave the name of Arte- 
misian, or the temple of Diana, to -that city of the 
Contestani which the Romans afterwards, and from 
the same cause, adapted to their own language as 
Dianium; and which now, from that decay to which 
names as well as things must submit, is called 
Denia. 

The Monapia of Pliny, called Menavia by Orosius, 
seems to me to have been inhabited by the people 
called Manapii : I mean that island in the Irish sea 
almost midway between England and Ireland, of an 
oblong form, extending from north to south — it is 
called by Ptolemy, Monseoida. This and another 
island lying more to the south, and wider in its 
dimensions, situated in the bay of the Ordovices, from 
whom it is separated only by a narrow strait, are 
both designated by the common appellation of Monoe. 
The more southern one abounded in a hardy popu- 
lation, which it hesitated not to strengthen by open- 
ing an asylum to all deserters, without regard to the 
cause. After its capture by the Angli, it got from 
them the name of Anglesey, that is, the isle of the 
Angli, or EngHsh. Mona is a term of Phoenician 
superstition, from mon, an idol or image. Moneoida 
would seem compounded of mon, and of oid, a 
festival, intimating a festival held in honor of an 
idol ; and Monoceda of mon, and chedad, which 
signifies bent or stooping, the attitude of reverence 
in the presence of their idols. Evolenum, which is 



^ 



175 

supposed to have been the city of Menapia, I would 
derive from hebelin, idols ; and Coulan from coulin, 
sounds, thunders*; elsewhere called Beth-col,* that is. 



* A divination called the Bath-col, which was the taking as 
a prediction the first words they heard any body pronounce ; 
and as superstitions have ever been contagious, we find some- 
thing similar to this in the Grecian records ; for when Socrates 
was in prison, a person there happened tu quote from Homer 
the following line : — 

" In three days, I, Phthiae, shall visit thy shores." 

Socrates immediately said to ^schinus — " From this I learn I 
shall die in three days !" [He formed this opinion from the 
double sense of the word '* Phthice/^ it beino; in Greek not only 
the name of a place, but also signifies death.] Conformably to 
this prediction, Socrates was put to death three days after." 

All these various modes have descended to our times. The 
first Christians, in adopting them, rejected searching into pro- 
fane writers, and looked for these, as they termed them, divine 
ordinances, in the Scripture. They termed them the ^' sortes 
sanctormn, *'dLnd even attempted to justify the practice from the 
authority of Proverbs, chap. xli. verse 33 — "The lot is cast 
into the lap, but the disposing thereof is of tlie Lord ;" and 
again, of this text — '* Search, and ye shall find ;" but at the 
same time, they omitted to pay due attention to such verses as 
these — ** Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God ;" and (Dent, 
chap, xxiii. verse 10,^ " There shall not be found among you 
any that useth divination, &c., for all that do these things are 
an abomination unto the Lord ;" and their sentence (according 
to Leviticus, chap. xx. verse 27,) was to be stoned to death. 

When Heraclins in his war against Cosroes, wished to learn 
in what place he should take up his winter quarters, he purified 
his army for three days, opened the Gospels, and found 
'* Albania?" A thousand other instances might be given to 
prove its prevalency ; and many learned divines have seriously 
argued in its favour, in many grave and ponderous folio 



176 

the daughter of voice, intimating not a real or solid 
voice, but the echo thereof, more particularly the 

volumes! ! Nor is it less amusing, in our days, to remember 
the Council of Agda, at which were assembled all the chief 
dignitaries of the Church ; and all the learned men of that age 
thought it worth their while to take the matter into their 
serious consideration, and after discussing, with due solemnity 
all the pros and cons of the question, they, in the year cOG, 
condemned the practice as superstitious, heretical, and abomi- 
nable, and denounced the severest ecclesiastical vengeance on 
all who should resort to it ! ! ! The Viryilian Lots, in the 
mean time, did not languish, though the '* holy " ones so 
much flourished ; there were still found many admirers of the 
Classics, who preferred consulting Virgil to Scripture, not 
the less so, perhaps, from the then generally received opinion, 
of Virgil's having been a great conjurer. In the reign of 
Charles the First, when implicit credence was placed in 
lots, anagramSf &c., we meet with several accounts of this 
divination having been had recourse to. Howell, in his 
entertaining Letters, frequently mentions it ; and Cowley, 
writing of the Scotch Treaty, makes use of the following 
curious words : — *' The Scotch will moderate something of the 
rigour of their demands ; the mutual necessity of an accord is 
vissible ; the King is persuaded of it, and to tell you the truth, 
(which I take to be an argument above all the rest,) Virgil 
has told the same thing to that purpose." Charles the First 
himself and Lord Falkland being in the Bodleian Library, 
were shewn a magnificently bound Virgil^ and the latter, to 
amuse the King, proposed that they should try to discover in 
the '* Virgilian Lots " their future fortunes. They did so, and 
met with passages equally ominous to each. 

Nor has, this superstition been confined to Europe, or the 
borders of the Mediterranean ; it is equally to be met with in 
Arabia and Persia, for Credula mens hominis, et erect ce fabulis 
aures." ** The mind of man is every where equally credulous, 
and the ears equally open in all parts of the world to receive 
fables." Superstitious practices are therefore never lost, but. 



177 

representation of the reverberated voice in the 
oracles. 

where the slightest intercourse exists, the first thing bartered for 
are these. We need not then be surprised to find that a pre- 
cisely similar custom prevails in the east, where this sortelege 
is termed '' tufal." Hafiz is the chief poet whom they consult; 
so great is the veneration the Persians entertain for hira, that 
they have given him the title of *' divine;'' and on every re- 
markable occasion, his Book of Odes is opened for oracular 
information. When Hafiz himself died, several of the Ulemas 
violently objected to granting hira the usual rites of sepulture, 
on account of the licentiousness of his poetry ; but at length, 
after much dispute, it was agreed that the matter should be 
decided by the words of Hafiz himself. For this purpose, his 
diruan (or collection of poems) was brought, and being opened 
at random, the first that presented itself was read; it proved to 
be the following : — 

Turn not thy steps from Hafiz mournful grave, 
Him plunged in sin shall heavenly mercy save ! 
Of course every funereal honour was immediately ordered to be 
paid him ; he was buried at the favourite mosella, and a mag- 
nificent tomb was raised over his almost adored remains, 
shadowed, as Captain Franklin tells us, by the poet's beloved 
cypresses ; in this a remarkable fine copy of his Odes was 
continually placed. When the great Nadir Shah and his 
officers were passing by this tomb, near Shiraz, they were 
shewn the copy of the poet's works, and one of the company 
opening it, the first passage that met their eyes was the follow- 
ing, which they, of course, immediately applied to the con- 
queror : — '* It is but just that thou shouldst receive a tribute 
from all fair youths, since thou art the sovereign of all the 
beauties in the universe ; thy two piercing eyes have thrown 
Khater (Scythia) and Khaten (Tartary) into confusion ; India 
and China pay homage to thy curled locks; thy graceful 
mouth gave the streams of life to Kheyr ; thy sugared lip ren- 
ders the sweet reeds of Mirr ( Egypt) contemptible." 

N 



178 



CHAP. XVIII. 



The Auteri a people of Ireland — Various opinions respecting 
their proper country — Muriagh, whence so called — Various 
opinions likewise as to the derivation of the name Auteri — 
Whether they ivere Phoenicians — Coronaan epithet of Tyre — 
The Autetani a people of Spain — The Dannance a people of 
Ireland — Where settled — Whether from the Danes —River 
Dee — Conjecture on the origin of the name Dannance — Dan 
a city of the Phoenicians — Ardes — Ardea. 

The Auteri, emphatically designated as the real 
native ancient Irish, were situated at the mouth of 
the river Erin, in the farthest extremity of the pro- 
vince of Munster. Ptolemy, in alluding to them, 
calls them at one time, Auteiroi, at another, Auteroi, 
and places them in certain parts of the country then 
known by the name of Naquatia or Connatia. Others 
think they inhabited those districts which correspond 
with the present counties of Gal way. Mayo, and 
Roscommon in the province of Connaught, being 
that old and extensive tract often called Muriah or 
Hy-Moruisge, which they interpret by the region of 
sea water, and which is still preserved without much 



179 

alteration in Morisk, the name of a barony as well 
a sa little town in the county Mayo,* and in Murrach 
a village of the barony of Carbery in the county of 
Cork. But Muriah would seem naturally to be de- 
duced from the Phoenician Moriaga, which means, 
habitations or houses systematically arranged, from 
whence it is probable that the Irish Murighin, that is, 
families took its rise, and the Spanish Amoraga, a 
gentile appellative. 

Baxterf is of opinion that the Auteri were so called 
by the Brygantes after they and the Belgae had 
taken possession of the greater part of Ireland to 
their colonies, — that they were the Erigenae or real 
offspring of the Irish soil — and that they were driven 
at first by the Brigantes from Britain, who after- 
wards, in this country, followed up their pursuit till 
they made them take shelter in its remotest extre- 
mity. Wishing then to account for the origin of 
their name, the same author adds, " Er in British is 
land, from the Greek era ; from this the native Irish 
were named Erion or Erii by the Brigantes, and the 
island itself Iris, that is, the isle of Erii, by the 
Greeks. And seeing that ot, or aut, means to the 
Britons a coast or shore, what should hinder our 
considering, aut erion being so called, as the coast of 
the Erii, or the ancient autokthonos, or land of the 



* Collect, lie Reb. Iberii. vol. III. p. 285. 
t Baxter, loc. lautl. p. 30, 31. 

N 2 



180 



natives." He finally observes that tlie Cantabri, the 
Vascones, and the Irish used in a great measure the 
dialect of the Irish aborigines, interspersed with 
many terms from the Phoenician, Celtic, and Bry- 
gantine languages ; and this interspersion may be 
accounted for by the fact, which some maintain, of 
the Trigones and Brigantes having had possession of 
either Spain, long before the days of the Punic wars. 
O'Flaherty* differs from this opinion, and asserts 
that the name of Auteri was forcibly twisted out of 
the term ath-en-ria or ath-na-rig, that is, the king's 
ford. But Ptolemy having declared his belief that 
Autera, an ancient city in Ireland, was the capital of 
the Auteri residing therein, many have been thereby 
induced to interpret the word as meaning a village 
or state by the waters of the west, compounded, as 
it were, of the Celtic aubh or aith, water, and eireigh, 
a western people. For the Auteri had inhabited 
near the sea coast. 

I, however, would venture to guess that the Au- 
teri, or ancient Irish, were the primitive Phoenicians 
who had discovered this island, and that they had 
obtained or assumed this name from that spirit of 
enterprising research which, in this as in other in- 
stances, had been so signally rewarded. I would, 
therefore, agreeably to this view, derive the name 
from, thar, he explored ; or from aatarin, adven- 



OTlahert. Ogygia. [>. 10, 17. 



181 

turers, deserters^ or people departing — as they did 
from Spain to fix themselves here. It may also have 
borne reference to a number of families of this colony ; 
for aatharin, in the Syriac, denotes^ a great muster of 
nations^ whilst it does also the wealthy, and who can 
say but that by this name they would indicate the 
treasures they had acquired from the mines of this 
country, or the exportation of its commodities and 
the produce of its soil, to the most distant quarters 
of the then known world. Or what if they chose 
this name from autereh, or aature, a crown ? This, 
we know, was an epithet given of old to Tyre, the 
capital of Phoenicia, as in Isaiah xxiii. 8, it is said, 
'' Tyre formerly crowned," as it may well be called 
from the splendor of its buildings, the strength of 
its citadels and fortifications, and abundance of its 
riches, " whose merchants were princes, and whose 
factors were the renowned of the earth." With the 
Hebrews and Syrians also, autereh, or crown, was 
equivalent with honor or delight. We meet fre- 
quently in the scriptures " the crown of old men" 
for their children's children ; '' the crown of glory in 
the hand of the Lord," &c. which perhaps gave rise 
to the custom amongst some ancient states to wear 
a crown on either their head, their neck, or their 
right hand. That the christians of the primitive 
church wore crowns on their hand is evident from 
Tertullian's book '' on the soldier's crown." 

These Auteri may have been a tribe of the Ante- 



182 

rani or Autetani of Spain, of whom Ptolemy makes 
mention, and whom we now call the Ausetani. But 
it is to me beyond question that the Spanish Autri- 
gones, who had settled on the confines of the Can- 
tabri and the Barduli, were a part and parcel of the 
self same Phoenician colony ; for the name Antri- 
gones is obviously perverted from Auterigones, in- 
cluding in its formation the two Phoenician terms 
Autereh-goin, crowned nations, or atharin-goin, ex- 
ploring nations — goin, in the Syriac, as goim in the 
Hebrew, meaning tribes, nations, or families. 

The Danannse, or Dananni were also an ancient 
colony in Ireland, who, as some writers declare, had 
fixed their residence in the northern quarters of the 
island. Tradition tells us that they had originally 
inhabited the cities of Falia, Goria, Finnia, and Muria 
in North Germany, and spoke the language too of 
that country ; but an immense number of Irish an- 
tiquarians, as O'Flaherty observes, have irrefragably 
proved, at least put upon record, that they were in- 
habitants of the northern parts of Britain, more 
especially of those places that went then by the 
names of Dobar and Indobar.* In this section of the 



* The ascription which would make those people either Ger- 
man or British, notwithstanding the vagaries of ivould-be anti- 
quarians, even though backed by O'Flaherty, is egregiously 
erroneous, as I shall show elsewhere. ** The colony of the 
Tuatha de Danains, [thus called from three of their chiefs, named 
Brien, luchor, and Jucorba, — who were High Mayi, or diviners, 



183 

sister isle, Camden tells us, lies the river Dee, which 
makes O'Flaherty suspect that the name of Tuath- 
Dee — intimating a people residing by that river — 
was thereby occasioned. He does not dare, however, 
to trace any affinity between the name Danann and 
that of the Danes, it being notorious that it was not 
until after the introduction of Christianity and the 
salutary doctrines which its professors had enforced, 
this scourge of the human species, and of the latin 
nations in particular, had burst forth from the ob- 
scurity of their previous existence, bringing death 
and dismay in their desolating career, ravaging the 
abodes of sanctity and religion, and obliterating every 
vestige of previous civilizalion.* 



as the word Tuatha signifies, —brothers, and children of Danan, 
daughter of Dealboith, of the race of Nemedius,] was in posses- 
sion of Ireland, according to the Psalter of Cashel, for the space 
of one hundred and ninety seven years, governed by seven kings 
successively, namely, Nuagha Airgiodlamh, Breas, Lugha- 
Lamh-Fada, in Latin, " Longimanus," Dagha, Delvioth, 
Fiagha, and the three sons of Kearmada, namely, Eathur, 
Teahur and Keahur ; who reigned alternately, a year eachy 
for thirty years. Those three brothers were married to three, 
sisters ; they took surnames from the different idols which they 
worshipped. Eathur, who had married Banba, was called 
Maccuill, from a certain kind of wood which he adored 
Teahur espoused Fodhia, and worshipped the plough ; he was 
called Mac-Keaght. Keahur, husband of Eire, displayed 
better taste than his brothers, as he took the sun for his divi- 
nity, and was thence named Mac-Greine, that ^is to say, the 
son of the sun. — Mac Geoghegan. 

* Danann autem non audet Danorum nomini affine dicere ; 



184 



1 



I, too^ would not be positive, in furtherance of my 
own theory, in claiming those people as of Phoeni- 
cian birth, though my pretensions to the claim may 
not seem altogether groundless when I recollect that in 
that language are to be found the words danihain, sig- 
nifying illustrious, generous, noble, or rather Danin for 
Danani or Danita,the inhabitants of the city of Dan,* 
at the foot of Mount Lebanus, the boundary, towards 
the north, of the ten Israelish tribes, and still more 
celebrated as the spot where the Phoenicians wor- 
shipped the graven image given them by Micha, and 
where Jeroboam had erected the golden calf. I wave 
these pretensions, however, on the probability that the 
Aradians, or natives of the island of Arad, friends 
and allies of the Phoenicians, had given their names 
as the very sound implies, to those towns in Ireland 
called Ard, Ardes, Arde, &c. on the probability also 
that the Aramseans, or natives of Aramoea gave rise 
to the name of the Irish Aremorice, as will appear 
more fully in the sequel. 



cAm non nisi saeculis Christianis Danorum noraen cum eorum 
irruptionibus Latinis gentibus innotuerit. 

* Afterwards called by the Greeks, paneas, caesarea panea?, 
and Cjcsarea Pliilippi ; but by the barbarians Belina. 



185 



CHAP. XIX. 



The Damnii, ancient inhabitants of the county of Down — 
whether so called from the river Davon — Or from Dunum — 
conjectures upon the origin of the name as Phcenician — Dam- 
iana a city of Spain — The Damnonii whence so called — ivhere 
they settled — The Curiondi celebrated seamen — Inhabitants 
of Wexford — Various opinions as to the etymology of the name 
— Curucoe, ships made of bark — Used by the Spaniards — 
Whether the Curiondi were Phcenicians — Whether descended 
fromCaurium or Cauria, cities of Spahi. 

The Damnii, an ancient people of Ireland, to be 
found in Ptolemy, had fixed their settlement in the 
present county Down, in the province of Ulster, 
Some people suppose they had derived this name 
from the Brigantine term Davon, or Daun, a bay or 
river. Daunii, Dunin, &c. coming from which, sig- 
nify the country of lakes or rivers. In this sense it 
corresponds to the Irish denomination of a tract or 
portions of a country, Magh Gennuisg. Seeing, how- 
ever, that in some copies of Ptolemy, they are styled 
Damnonioi, there be some who suspect that the 
Damnii, of whom he makes mention, were so called 
from Dunum, now Downpatrick. In the Celtic Ian- 



186 

guage, dun is precisely the same thing as berga, the 
common name for a place of abode, and the Teutonic 
berg, meaning a fortress upon a hill, or a hill sur- 
rounded by a fortress. These have been borrowed 
from the Arabic and old Phoenician in which we 
meet with the word barg, a tower, and barga, a 
villa. Hence was derived Barca, the name of a 
town amongst the Vetones in Spain ; Barceo, another 
amongst the Vaccei; Barch, amongst the Edetani ; 
Bargos, amongst the Carpet ani ; Bargo, Bargota, 
Barjas, Bergua, Berga, Berge, Begos, Borge, Bur- 
gas, and other names of this kind to be met with 
in almost every canton of that Peninsula. In this 
list I should not have omitted Bergio, an ancient 
fortified town of the Lacetani, designated by Livy 
by the denomination of ^^ the long to"\Mi," w^hich it 
afterwards changed for that of Celsona ; its modern 
name is Solsona. 

I should myself suppose that the Irish Damnii 
were a tribe of Spanish Phoenicians, descended from 
the Damnii, or Damniani, who built the ancient city 
of the Edetani, called Damiana, the name by which 
Ptolemy also notices it. And, though some Spanish 
writers would derive the term from the Celtic words 
da-min, a habitation beside a mountain or river, it 
strikes me as more probable that it originated from 
its Phoenician inhabitants, and in allusion to the 
worship which they paid their idols, damain, or 
damon, signifying in their language, idols or images. 



187 

Or, perhaps, the name belongs to geography, and 
comes from dumain, the descendants of Dumali, a 
city of Syria, or Dimona which was one of the lot 
of Judah, or from a city of Arabia of the same name, 
and called after Dumah, the son of Ismael, of which 
latter it is said in Isaiah, " the burden of Dumah," 
rendered by the septuagint Idumea ; and the Phoe- 
nicians, we may observe, never forgot the Arabian 
cities from whence they had emigrated into Syria. 

To the same source would I refer the name of 
the Damnonii, or Damhnonii, who according to the 
ancient* writers upon Irish topics, originally occupied 
the lands of Cornwall and Devonshire, laying to- 
wards the extreme west of England, just opposite 
our shores ; they subsequently took possession of 
the ancient Hy-Moruisge^ or Morisk, an extensive 
district in the west of Ireland, being the present 
county of Mayo, in the province of Connaught. 
Others, on the contrary, think this name derived from 
the Celtic, or Cambrico-Britannic word, Dyvneint 
or Duvnon, meaning depth of water, Duvnonii, 

* For their dear sakes I love thee, 
Ma vourneen, though unseen ; 
Bright be the sky above thee. 

Thy shamrock ever green ; 
May evil ne*er distress thee, 

Nor darken nor defile, 
But heaven for ever bless thee — 
My own green isle ! 

Barton. 



188 

Dabhnoiiii, or Damhnonii, therefore, would express to 
them a people settled beside the deep water or the sea. 
O'Flaherty asserts that they were called Fir-Dom- 
nan, equivalent to, the men or the clan of Domnan ; 
and that several places in Ireland have been named 
from them, for instance, Inver-Domnan, where they 
first put in on their landing from Britain, afterwards 
called Invermor,* and at present Arklow, being a 
river and seaport town in the county of Wicklow, 
and the capital of a barony of the same name. 

The Coriondi or Curiondi, a tribe of the Irish 
Brigantes, were celebrated sailors and lived almost 
continually and professionally upon the water. 
Ptolemy, in his writings, has made mention of them, 
and it is generally admitted that their settlements 
lay in the present county of Wexford, in the province 
of Leinster. There is a tradition very prevalent 
amongst the inhabitants of the county, that their 



* Avoiimore, which name signifying the gjreat winding stream, 
corresponds most happily with its character, the banks conti- 
nually forming the finest waving lines, eithei covered with close 
coppice woods or with scattered oak and ash of considerable 
growth — the ground in some places smooth meadow and pas- 
ture, in others rising in romantic clifts and craggy precipices. 
At Avondale, the Avoumore meeting with the Avon beg, or 
little Avon, the united streams assume the nameof Ovoca, and 
passing by Shelton, it empties itself, through a bridge of nine, 
teen arches, into the sea at Arklow,- whence it keeps its stream 
distinctly marked from the sea for near half a mile from the 
shore. — Fruscr. 



I 



189 

chiefs were the Mac-Mooroghs, or O'Moroghs, who 
in the old records of Ireland are called the Leinster 
kings. Certain families, of their party, we find had 
separated from the general corps, and established 
themselves in the adjoining county of Carlo w, in a 
place then called Hy-Cabha-nagh, being a district of 
the barony of Idrone. 

The opinion most received is, that the name of 
Coriondi consists of the Irish words corcach, vessels, 
and ondiu, a wave. In this light it may fairly be 
rendered as equivalent with, navigators. The ancient 
Irish used besides to call them Corthagh, that is " the 
rowers," and their habitation or locality Hy-Moragh, 
that is, the maritime country. Some, however, on 
the authority of Camden, would take another road, 
though aiming at the same sense, and maintain that 
they were inhabitants of Corcagia or Cork, and the 
founders of that city, in Irish Corcugh, being the 
capital of all Munster, and next to Dublin the most 
considerable city in the kingdom, for extent, for 
commerce, and its concomitant wealth. Seeing then 
that the barky vessels or canoes of the ancient Bri- 
tons were called curucse,* they think it very probable 
that the town of Cork was so called, as you would 
say " the dockyard," or naval store, and its inhabi- 
tants, coriondi, that is, navigators, from those curucae 
or bark boats. Others would derive their name 

* Cvriica scMi Cvrrach. trat iiiivis coriacoa jhmii' lotuiKla, 



190 

from corion-cliu, which, for ought I know to the 
contrary, may signify a sea hide. Certainly the 



vitile navigium, ut ait Plinius (IV. 16.) corio circumsutum. 
Pelasgos item et Etruscos, Britannorum etScotorum more,navi- 
biisex corio et vimine usos fuisse, auctor est Dempterus (Etru- 
rise Regal. III. 80.) " Res, inquit Festus Avienus {Orce Mariti- 
moe lib. I.) ad miraciilum — Navigio junctis semper aptant pelli- 
bus — Corisque vastum saepe percurrentsaiura." Lydii, aitlsi- 
dorus Hispan. {Orig. XIX. 1.) primam navem fabricaverunt, 
pelagique incerta petentes, pervium mare usibus humaiiis fece- 
runt." (V. Praes. Carol. Vallancey in n. XII. Collect, de Reb. 
Ihern. p. CXVIII.) Talibus Silures navigasse ad Cassiteridem 
insulara, scribit Plinius : quin et Cantabros et reliquos boreales 
Hispanos diphfherinois ploiois fuisse usos usque ad Brutum, ex 
Strabone(ItI.) constat : imo et Babylouios ipsos ex Herodoto 
(V. Baxter, loc. laud.) Inde hodie Carraca vocatur Hispanis 
quaedam species onerariae navis : et situs construendis navibus 
aptus juxta Gaditanum emporium. Hanc navem carabum etiam 
appellatam, testis est Isidorus in etymologicis. Quee vox ducta 
videtur a Phoen. carab, adiit, advenit, quod de iter facientibus 
dicitur ; vel a carab aravit : nam iter navis in mari similis est 
sulcis, qui fiunt arando. Carraca autem, seu currucak Phoen, 
carrac, circumdedit, ligavit, velavit, involvit ; quod apprime 
navibus congruit corio circumsutis. It is not unworthy of no- 
tice that this description of boat was quite common round the en- 
tire coast of Ireland not long since, the very look of them would 
be sufficient to appal the bravest seaman from embarking his pre- 
cious person in so small and frail a vessel, where in calm weather 
you can, in ten fathom water, see every particle through her bot- 
tom on that of the sea, as distinctly as you can discern an object 
through a window ; instances have been known where acci- 
dentally putting a foot between two ribs which it had gone 
through, the person was obliged to keep the leg protruded in 
that position until the land was made. 
** Where in leathern hairy boat, 
0*er threatening waves bold mortals float," 



191 

Britons, to this very day, call hides by the name of 
cruyn, from the Greek, krous, to which the Latin 
corium, also, has reference. 

But we have the clearest evidence, in the very con- 
struction of the name itself, that this was a Phoeni- 
cian nation, and the accounts given of them by the 
Irish historians, if but diligently perused, would be 
sufficient to confirm us in this conviction. For, 
from the skill they evinced in the building of vessels, 
and the vast number and variety of them that they 
contrived to employ, from the adventuring trader 
and the daring man of war, down to the cumbrous 
lugger and the volatile skiff, plying them constantly 
on the water, in one form or the other, they were 
very appropriately, though metaphorically, charac- 
terised as curin or fishes,* which we find still applied, 
and for the same causes, to the Britons of this day. 



* The Inland Fisheries of Ireland have never been made 
available to their practical extent, although they contribute 
alike to the luxuries of the rich and the comforts of the poor. 
It is not a merely local or a partial improvement that we re- 
commend; the benefit is not confined to a spot or district here 
and there ; the advantages we suggest are as extensive as the 
rivers are many which beautify, refresh, and fertilize every 
county in Ireland. — And shall man, impious man, to whom the 
all-providing word of God gave power, when he said ** Let 
the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that 
hath lifcy and let man have dominion over them ;" — shall man, 
by a devastating waste, counteract the beneficent design of iiis 
Creator, and even destroy, in its very source, that gracious 
abundance intended to feed millions ! 



192 



I 



Nor must it be put down as a dream, and that of 
a sick man too, if I express my belief that they were 
Phoenicians who had proceeded from Caurium, an 
ancient city in Spain on the borders of Lusitania, now 
called coria, or from a city of Boetica, called Cauria 
Siarum, now Coria del Rio ; for the Phoenicians in- 
habited them both, and both are derived from cauria 
or coria, which in their language signifies a city, a 
villa, or a camp. Hence arose the name of many 
of the cities in the department of the tribe of Judah ; 
Cariathiarim, meaning the city of woods ; Cariath- 
sepher, the city of letters ; Cariath Arbe, that of 
the Patriarch Enoch, as well as of several towns in 
different parts of Spain, such as Corias, Coristancas, 
Lacoriana, &:c. &c. Thus Coriondi, or Curiondi, 
quasi Corin, would express the descendants of the 
above mentioned cities of Cauria, or Caurium ; or 
quasi Caurionin, the robust and substantial people 
of those places ; on, importing strength, fortitude, and 
worldly opulence. 



193 



CHAP. XX. 



The Fomhoraice, or sea robbers ravaged Ireland — They were 
Phoenicians — Analogy of this Irish name with the Phoenician 
— -Vestiges thereof in certain Spanish towns — Superstitious 
name of the Forcrabii inhabitants of Ireland^ why so called — 
The Vellabori a people of Ireland — Conjecture on the origin 
of this name — Cape of Notium— The Uterni — Their prin- 
cipal city Uverni or Rufina — Whether these names be of 
Phoenician descent. 

The Fomhoraice, or Formaragh,* of whom the old 
poems of our island make mention, were a people 
who plundered its southern coast, long as the Neme- 



* Plutarch, in his life of Seitorius, tells us that this cele- 
brated commander determined to make the Atlantic Isle (that 
is Ireland) a place of retreat and residence from the persecu- 
tion of his enemies. In another work, entitled " De facie in 
orbe Lunae," he describes this " Atlantic isle" to be opposite the 
Celtse, and but four days sail from Britain. The Irish legions 
in Gaul, were called Fine Gall, those in Albany, Fine Albau. 
*' We may very well suppose," says O'llalloran, '• that the 
Fine Fomharaigh, or African legions, so often met with in the 
old Irish manuscripts, meant no other than the Irish cohorts 
ill that service." 

O 



194 

thae held possession of it. They are supposed to have 
been a body of Phoenician traders, who visited the 
British isles, about four hundred years before the 
Christian era, and obtained this name from the occu- 
pation of prowling sea robbers ; fomhor and fomhorac 
in Irish, signify a pirate, as they do a giant also. 
These words, however, have originally their root in 
the Phoenician, where we find fom-horac meaning fu- 
gitives and disturbers of the earth, v/Lich well accords 
with the description given by ancient historians of 
those rapacious intruders into the British islands. 
Perhaps they were some of the first Phoenicians who 
flying before the face of the people of Israel, trans- 
ported themselves from Syria, whose footsteps are 
still preserved in the names of those towns in Spain, 
situated amongst the Gallaici Lucani, Formarigo, 
and Formaran : in that of Famorca, amongst the 
Edetani, and that of Formanes amongst the Astures. 
The Forcrabii, or Fir-na-crabii, were ancient set- 
tlers in that part of the country called Hy-Magh- 
neigh, embracing in its dimensions the present county 
of Monaghan, with a part of what was anciently 
called Oirgail, and under the command of the Ma- 
honies, or Mac-Mahons. The name of this tribe 
would appear suggested from some superstitious con- 
sideration, as it is evidently composed of the Irish 
words j^rc- crahhath, true religion ; or if you prefer 
the Phoenician words, frin, fruit ; or farin, bullocks ; 
and crabin, oblations or sacrifices, which latter word 



195 

is itself derived from corban, importing any thing 
offered to God or to idols. The name of Oirgael 
too, or Orgiel, which some call Oircael, and interpret 
by the eastern cael — being an extensive district, 
consisting of the present counties of Louth, Mo- 
naghan, and Armagh, and formerly ruled over by its 
own petty sovereigns — savors very strongly of Phoe- 
nician superstition. For, or, in that language, is 
fire ; and gael, or gail, delight, exultation, from the 
root ghil, which expresses that gladness of the mind 
that betrays itself by the gestures of the body ; and 
their combined import would appear to refer to the 
joy of that nation in the days sacred to the worship 
of fire. 

The Vellabori, an ancient Irish tribe, to be met 
with also in Ptolemy, were stationed in Munster, be- 
side the promontory of Notium. There are who 
think this name derived from the British words vel- 
aber, or bel-aber, the source of a frith.* What would 
the learned suppose of its being of Phoenician de- 
scent, and compounded of the words bali-bira,an anci- 
ent temple ? which, yet, I confess I do not incline to so 



* Baxtero (loc. laud. p. 23G.) vitiosa sunt iiomina oucliboroi. 
et OucUeboroi, quje in quibnsdam Ptolema^i exc^niplaribus le- 
guntur, 8i vero haec grnuina scriptura est, siispicarer fuisse 
Ibero Phceniccs, oiiundos ex campo Abel seu Obel, quae erat 
magna Syriai planities (Judic. xi.33.) viii^is consita, ubi Jeplite 
devicit Ammonitas : quiqu(j cA de causa Obel-Ibcri appellati 
sunt. 

o 2 



196 

strongly as to the idea of its bearing reference to the 
victims offered in sacrifice to Baal — whether as actu- 
ally burned or only dragged through — in which view 
of the matter I would suppose its ingredients to be bel- 
aborin — which means^ dragging across before Baal — 
from abar, the verb, which expresses this ceremony, 
the nature of which was to conduct or drag the vic- 
tim — and that too a human being, and generally a 
boy — between two pyres, or series of fires, until he 
was burned to death. In reference to this monstrous 
and unrighteous practice it is that we are to under- 
stand the passage in 11. Kings, xvi. 3, where talking 
of Achaz it is said, " he hath devoted his son, bearing 
him over admidst the fire." But we have descanted 
upon this more diffusely in the early part of this 
work, and will dwell upon it still more when we come 
to treat of the idolatry of the Phoenicians in Ireland. 
The promontory of Notium seems to have got its 
name from the woods and forests in which it 
abounded ; for Notiin, in the Phoenician, from which 
it is manifestly derived, signifies plants, or planta- 
tions. 

The Vellabori would seem to have left traces of 
their name in that of Ballibur, a town in the county 
Kilkenny, province of Leinster ; in that of Bally- 
burris, a village in the county of Carlow, same pro- 
vince. In Spain too, from whence this people may 
perhaps have originated, the mind instinctively asso- 
ciates their name with that of Ballobar, a town in 



197 



Celtiberia, and that of Belabarce, a river in the 
district of the Cantabrians. 

The Uterni^ a people mentioned by Ptolemy* as 
living on the borders of the Irish Brigantes, above 
the Vodiae, were stationed in the southern quarter of 
the county Kerry, and the western quarter of the 
county Cork which adjoins it, in the province of 
Munster. Their chief city, as mentioned also by this 
distinguished geographer, was Uverni, situated on 
the sea-coast, and called, Insovenach, by the natives, 
though Cirencester would call it Rufina, a name, it 
is supposed, vitiated in its formation from ruadh 
eanagh, which is generally translated, the habitation 
of the progeny of the waters. The exact site of this 



* This great Alexandrian geographer, who lived in the reign 
of Antoninus Pius, about the year of Christ 130, enumerates 
several illustrious cities existing in bis time in Ireland ; and it 
is manifest they must have existed a long time before, else he 
would not have heard of them, for he never himself visited 
those shores — viz. — 

1. Nagnata, an illustrious maritime city (polis episemos) on 
the western coast. 

2. Manapia, a maritime city on the eastern side. 

3. Eblana, a maritime city, on the eastern side. 

4. Rhigia, an inland city 13 60 ^ 

5. Baiba, an inland city 12 59^ I 

6. Laberos, an inland city 13 59 ^ 

7. Makolikon, an inland city llh 58 ^ 

8. Another Rhigia, an inland city... 11 59 J 

9. Dounon, an inland city 12 J 58 J \ 

10. luernis, an inland city 11 58 ~ 



ms 



1 



city is now unknown, though some think it likely to 
liave been either the present town of Bantry or that 
of Kenmare. Many identify the Uterni with the 
I bernii of Cirencester ; others deduce their names 
from the Irish words Ubh-ernii, that is, a more 
western people. But, perhaps, it is the Phoenician 
utrin, or atrin, explorers, called also thirin, that best 
accords with the elevated ground on which they had 
settled. It also signifies, leaders ; or persons dis- 
charging convoy. Whence, too, they would seem to 
have been called Ibernii, from the Spanish Iberi, who 
were their conductors, unless you prefer that they 
had got their name from their physical power and 
strength, for Iberin, in the Phoenician, signifies brave 
or valiant. This would seem to gain countenance 
by the name of their principal city, Rufina, coming 
from rufiin, giants ; as also by that of Insovenach, 
composed, as it is, of the Phoenician words izzab- 
anac, or the post where the giants stood together, 
namely, the race of Anac, the son of Arba, from whom 
the flower of the Phoenicians, as well in birth as 
prowess, boasted of having derived their origin. As 
to Uverni, by which in common with the two names 
just elucidated, this same city was indiscriminately 
called, it would seem to be, merely a geographical 
term, referring to locality, for uberin, in the Phoeni- 
cian, expresses boundaries, extremities, or sides. 



199 



CHAP. XXI. 



The NagnatcB inhabitants of Connaught — The islands of Arran 

— Sligo, why so called — Whether the Nagnatce were 
Phcenicians — The valley of Aran amongst the Ilergeti in 
Spain — Arana, Aranaz, villages and tracts of land in Spain 
— Promontory of Robogd — Its etymology — The Heremonii, 
what tract of Ireland they inhabited — Origin of their name 

— Whether they were the AramtBi — Footsteps of this nation 
in Ireland and in Spain — Etymology of the tribes into 
which they were divided. 

The Nagnatae,* mentioned by Ptolemy as an 
ancient people of Ireland, are called by him, in 
some of his writings, by the name of Naguatae. 
Baxter agrees with Camden in thinking, that their 
residence lay in Connaught, that is, in the western 
section of the island. This was a large and spacious 
line of country, lying on the north of the Luceni, 



* Nagnata, a remarkable city on the sea coast, of which no 
traces now remain, lay, it is supposed, northward of the Ausoba. 
It must have been once a flourishing- place, as we find that with 
the prefix ** Cuon," signifying in Irish, a port, or harbour, it 
gave name to the whole province of Con-naught. 



200 

in the extreme south of the island of Robogdium, 
by the promontory of this name. The name of 
Connaught is supposed to have been abbreviated from 
Cuan-na-guactic, that is, the port of the little 
islands, namely, those which from the natives, Erion 
or Erii are called, at this day, Arran, for le- 
rion. Cuan, Baxter tells us, signifies a harbour in 
the Irish, as in the language of the modern Gauls, 
or the French, — coin, means a corner ; and congl, 
in the British, means the same. Vict, also, or vact, 
or guact, as it is otherwise expressed, is a little 
island ; na, being nothing more than the mark of 
the genitive case in the old language of the Brigan- 
tes, as well as that of the Irish. 

Others account for the composition of Nagnatae, 
by the Irish words, Na-gae-taegh, meaning an abode 
near the sea, and affirm that our ancient historians 
had called them, Slioght gae, that is, a race or pro- 
geny settled beside the sea ; from which latter words 
combined, comes the modern name of Sligo 

I should rather think, however, that the name of 
this people was Phoenician, and borrowed from that 
of the chief or leader of their body ; for in that 
language I perceive, that nagud, means a prince or 
chieftain, to whom the people look up, and to whose 
decision they appeal in all matters of dispute or 
litigation ; this word in the plural, makes nagudin. 
Nor would it be straining our fancy at all too far, 
if we would suppose them to have been so designated 



201 

from the quality of our lovely isle, which threw 
open to the delighted vision of those hold ad- 
venturers — at the moment, perhaps, when long 
estrangement from home and country was whisper- 
ing despair — the genial richness of its prolific bosom.* 
In support of this conjecture I would observe, that 
nagad, means a spacious country, a generous soil; 
nagab-natah, means the same, with the additional 
consideration of aridity or dryness ; which comports 
well with the nature of the western districts, in 
which those people had taken up their residence. 
Nacha-natah, means the inhabitants of a country 
such as we have just described. 

Nor do I agree with Baxter in his etymology of 
the islands of Arran or Aran, as they appear to me 
to have been so named by the Phoenicians, as a great 
many of the Irish mountains have been, from their 
abounding in trees, which they call Aran,f and to 

* Nee absonum est sic appellatos ^ regionis alienae qualitate, 
quaj eis novas sedes obtulit. 

+ It has also, in a peculiar degree, the property of preserv- 
ing bodies committed to the grave. Of this property, Giraldus 
Cambrensis took notice five hundred years ago — the following 
are his words as translated by Stanihurst — ** There is in the 
west of Connau^ht, an island placed in the sea, called Aren, 
to which St. Brendon had often recourse. The dead bodies 
neede not be graveled, for the ayre is so pure that the contagion 
of any carrion may not infect it, there may the son see his 
father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, &c. &c. This 
island is enemy to mice, for none is brought thijLher, for either 
it leapeth into the sea, or else being stayed it dyeth presently." 



202 

which sonobar, in the Arabic, meaning a pine tree 
or pinaster, exactly answers. Unless you would 
choose to adhere to the exposition of the Spaniards — 
known, as we must admit they are, for accuracy in 
such points — who think that the name of the valley 
of Aran, which lies in the county of Urgellum, and 
under the jurisdiction formerly of the Ilergetes, 
being watered with rivers and numberless fountains, 
had been given it by the Phoenicians from its simi- 
litude to Mesopotamia, which they called Haran. 
The valley of Arana, which belongs to the Canta- 
brians, is submitted to the same test of the reader's 
decision, as are also various other tracts in the 
Spanish peninsula of like name, such as Aranaz, 
Aranache, Aranda, Aranga. 

The promontory of Robogh is supposed to have 
given its name to the Robogdi, who were an ancient 
people in this island, inhabiting parts of the several 
counties of Antrim, Londonderry, and Tyrone, in 
the province of Ulster. Ptolemy represents them as 
facing the Voluntioi. Camden thinks Robogd to be 
synonymous with Fair-fore-land, being a shewy and 
imposing cape ; * for in the old dialects of the Bri- 
gantes, re, ri, and ro, are indifferently used for rae, 
or ragh, before ; and vog-diu means a wave,' so that 



* On the water it forms one of those ever varying and pecu- 
liar novelties of view, which in this northern region give sin- 
gular pleasure. 



203 

Robogd, in his estimation, would express this local 
position, before the waves of the sea. But. as I 
take it, the promontory was named after the people 
living beside it, not the people after the promontory ; 
from the Phoenician words rabh-gad, a multiplicity 
of associates : or rob-gad, tumultuous allies, plun- 
derers, invaders. 

The Heremonii or Hermonii, who were classified 
according to their respective tribes of the Falgii, 
the Elii, the Caelenii, and the Morii, were inha- 
bitants of the eastern and central division, comprising 
the whole of the present province of Leinster. The 
fabulous story is, that they were the descendants of 
Heremon, who was the son of Milesius, from Spain. 
There is also another vulgar belief, that they were 
so denominated from residing in the west, the very 
name, it is supposed, signifying a western tract. 
But if it be at all of Irish extraction, it were better 
to derive it from armuinn, exiles ; but even this, I 
do not approve of. I shall, therefore, deduce the 
appellation from the Phoenician ermin, naked, un- 
clothed ; or ermon, a chesnut-tree, in which the hills 
of that district abounded. 

But what if I should assert that they were Phoeni- 
cians, from the vicinity of mount Hermon, which 
projects over Pameas ? For this celebrated mountain 
of Syria was so high, and so cold, that it was capped 
with snow in the midst of summer ; which made the 
natives take flight from its cheerless horrors, and 



204 



n 



repair to the more attractive and congenial air of 
Tyre. Or from Hermonin, a small mountain be- 
tween Tabor and Hermon, at the other side of the 
Jordan ? whose inhabitants, also, are called by 
geographers, Hermonii, or Hermonitae. 

But if we may indulge conjecture, I would add, 
that the Irish Heremonii may have been so called 
as being essentially a tribe of the Phoenicians. For 
the Syrians were called Aramaei or Aremin, from 
Aram, a region of Asia Minor, whose maritime in- 
habitants, were Phoenicians, and their principal cities. 
Tyre and Sidon. Now this region obtained its 
name, not from Aram, the son of Camuel, of the 
family of Nachor, (mentioned in Genesis, xxii. 21, 
23.) ; but from Aram, the fifth son of Sem, with 
whom the inhabitants of that coast ever plumed 
themselves as being connected. Accordingly, we 
know that Shur — that is — minus a syllable — Ashur, 
or Assyria, and Syria itself, which was confounded 
therewith— was called by them by the name of 
Aram. Hence, too, the Syrians living on the con- 
tinent of the land of Canaan, and the Phoenicians 
bordering on the sea coast, would fain affect the 
distinctive designation of Arameans. The Greeks 
used to call them Syrians, but they used to call 
themselves Aramaeans, as affirmed by Josephus and 
Strabo. The custom of the Old Testament, too, is 
to put Aram for Syria, and Arami, for Syrian — 
Arami and Armai, also, signified to the ancients, 



205 

idolaters, because that the first worshippers of 
idols, recorded by the scriptures, were Syrians, as 
Thare, the father of Abraham ; as Laban, and Na- 
haman, were of that country. Add that the gods of 
Syria, (as in Judges, x. 6,) were called Elhei Aram, 
meaning emphatically, the goddess of Syria — by 
which name Juno was worshipped in the east, and 
had a temple dedicated to her in Hierapolis, a city 
of that country. Nay, the Syriac language itself, was 
called Arimith, from this very source, as in Esdras, 
iv. 7, and in IL Kings, xviii. 26, where it is said, 
" We pray thee that thou speak to us, thy servants, 
(arimith,) in the Syriac tongue, and not speak to us, 
(ihudaith,) in the Jewish." 

Ireland seems still to retain some vestiges of this 
people in the name of Armoy, a small town in the 
county Antrim ; in that of Arman or Ardman, a 
village in the barony of Ballaghkeen, in the county 
Wexford. As does Spain, also, in the name of 
Armian, a town of the Astures ; and in that of 
Armona, a mountain between the Pyrenees, in the 
district of the Aragonians. 

That the Heremonii were Aremin or Syrians, you 
will be more apt to admit, if you but observe that 
the names of the tribes into which they were dis- 
tributed are Phoenician. Falgii, the first, from falg 
or flag, signifies a division; Elii, the second, from 
elin, strangers, also eminent, surpassing; or from 
aeli, a sacrificing priest, derived from ela, a holo- 



206 



n 



caust, or whole burnt offerings : elil, also in the 
Syriac and Chaldaic, signifies idols^ as it does also 
illustrious ; Caelenii, the third, the ancient inhabitants 
of the tract called Caelan, in the county of Wicklow, 
conveyed to the Phoenicians the idea of cloked, from 
calaen, a cloak or outer garment.* Nor is it at 
all improbable but that these were a tribe of the 
Babylonians, consisting of those who, after the cap- 
tivity were mixed with the Syrians, for Caleneh 



* Doe you thinke that the mantle commeth from the Scy- 
thians ? I would surely think otherwise, for by that which I 
have read, it appeareth that most nations of the world aunciently 
used the mantle. For the lewes used it, as you may read of 
Elyas mantle, &c. The Chaldees also used it, as yee may 
read in Diodorus. The Egyptians likewise used it, as yee 
may read in Herodotus, and may be gathered by the description 
of Berenice, in the Greeke Commentary upon Callimachus. 
The Greekes also used it aunciently, as appeareth by Venus 
mantle lyned with starrs, though afterwards they changed the 
form thereof into their cloakes, called Pallia, as some of the 
Irish also use. And the auncient Latines and Romans used it, 
as you may read in Virgil, who was a very great antiquary : That 
Evander, when JEneas came to him at his feast, did eiitertaine 
and feast him, sitting on the ground, and lying on mantles. 
Insomuch as he useih the very word mantile for a mantle. 

<< Humi mantiiia sterniint." 

So that it seemeth that the mantle was a generall habite to 
most nations, and not proper to tlie Scythians onely. — Spenser. 

[" Humi mantiiia sternunt."] Evander's enter- 
tainment of JEneas, is set out in the 8 booke of Virgil's ^neis, 
but there we have no such word as mantile. In his entertain- 
ment by Dido we have it, hut in another sence. iEneid lib. 1. 



i 



207 

was a name given to the city of Babylon. The 
Morii, in fine, were so called from being professionally 
masters and instructors of others, this being the 
literal and exact meaning of Mori, or its plural 
Morin.* 



CHAP. XXII. 



The Fomorii subdued Ireland— They vjere Punic or Iberi 
merchants — Why so called— Whether the same as the Fom- 
horaice — The Firbolg or Bolgce — Various opinions on the 
etymology of this name — Whether it savors of superstition — 
Some roots of Irish names — The Gallionii, a nation of the 
Bolgce — Their name Phoenician. 

The Fomorii, or Fomoriani, whom some consider 
the Aborigines of Ireland, who were celebrated for 
their predatory attacks upon all its colonies, are 



lam pater iEneas, & jam Troiana iuventus 
Conveniunt, stratoque super discumbitur ostro, 
Dant famuli manibus lyniphas, Cerereinque canistris 
Expediunt, tonsisq, ferunt maiitilia villis," 

Sir James Ware. 
* A family in Ireland still retains this name. 



208 

agreed on all hands to have reduced it to submis- 
sion, with the confederated assistance of the Dannani. 
Authors disagree as to the period of their arrival. 
Some suppose that they had been established amongst 
us before the time of the second importation of the 
Belgse, and that they consisted of Punic or Iberic 
merchants, who had frequently and from immemorial 
time visited the coasts : they would, therefore, in 
accordance with this view, interpret the word as 
seafarers, or mariners, from its similitude to the 
Irish fomhor, or fomhorac, a pirate. But to my 
mind it is differently composed, and comes from the 
Phoenician expressions, fom-or, implying a foot 
shaking the earth before fire,* as much as to say. 



* These consecrated fires are at present much in vogue 
amongst the Gaures, and preserved vt'ith so much care and 
precaution, that they are called idolaters, and the worshippers 
of fire, though without the least grounds to support the un- 
generous accusation. For they pay no adoration to the material 
fire, although they make use of that element in the celebration 
of their divine service. It is the deity alone whom they adore 
in the presence of the fire, as the true symbol of the Divine 
Majesty. Though fire, according to the Gaures, is the purest 
of all tl'.e elements, yet they look upon it only as one of God's 
most perfect creatures, and it is, as they imagine, his favourite 
habitation. When they pray, they neither make their addresses 
to Mithra, nor the sun, nor the fire, but God alone ; many in- 
stances whereof are produced by the learned Dr. Hide from 
whence we may very readily infer, that the imputations 
of idolatry are as rash and groundless in Asia as they are in 
Europe. 



209 

dancers in honor, and revellers in honor, of this 
element ; for we have it on historical faith, that the 
sacrificial feasts of the Phoenicians, and of all nations 
also, terminated generally in drunkenness, with las- 
civious dances and plays. But if the Fomorii be the 
same as the Fomhoraice, or Formoragh, of whom 
our old ballads make mention, and who are also 
supposed to have been pirates or sea-robbers, it 
being indisputably manifest that the latter were a 
colony of the Pceni, or Phoenicians, I should con- 
ceive the name originated from frima-arac, a scissure 
of fugitives. This is the origin of Formariz, the 
name of a town in Spain, amongst the Zamorenses ; 
and of Formiche, the name of two small towns 
amongst the Celtiberians. Perhaps, too, we may 
recognize a vestige of those people in the name of 
Fermoy, a very handsome town in the county Cork, 
which some think to be an abbreviation for Fear- 
magh, or Fear-magh-feine, a man living in a sacred 
level. 

The Firbolg or Bolgae,* had established themselves 



* The Firbolgs or Belgians, to the number of five thousand 
men, commanded by five chiefs, either by the defeat or deser- 
tion of the Fomorians, took possession of the island. Those 
five leaders were Slaingey, llughruighe or llory, Gann, 
Gannan, and Sengan, all brothers, and children of Dela, of 
the race of the Nemedians. They divided the island into five 
parts or provinces, which cave birth to the pentaichy, which 
lasted with little interruption till t!ie twelfth centiiry. Slaiiigey, 

P 



210 

in the neighbourhood of the harbours of Wexford 
and A.rklow, in the east of Ireland. Frequent 
mention of them occurs in our ancient poems and 
annals ; and the received opinion is, that they came 
from Britain. They are called also Siol m Bolgae, 
and Slioght m Bealidh. They were distinguished 
into three nations, Firbolgse, Firdomnan, and Fir- 
galion, which are generally interpreted, clan Bolus, 
clan Domnan, and clan Galion : of the two last we 
shall speak under the head of the Domnanii and 
Galionii. 

On the origin of the name Bolgae the learned are 
far from agreeing in their opinions. Some think 
that by clan Bolus are meant the Belgas of Britain, 
who having passed over from Belgium, or the lower 
Germany, spread themselves over the counties of 
Somerset, Wilton, and the interior of Haver ford ; 
and that the British language which they made use 
of in Ireland, was eloquently and expressively desig- 
nated Belgaid, intimating it to be a Belgic idiom. 



governor of lieiiister, was the chief of the pentarchy, and 
monarch of the whole island. These people were known by three 
different names, viz., Gallenians, Damnonians, and Belgians; 
but the last was the general name of the whole colcny ; their 
dominion lasted about eighty years under nine kings, who were, 
Slaingey, Rory, Gann, Geanan, Sengan, Fiacha, Rionall, 
Fiobgin, and Eogha, who married Tailta, daughter of a 
Spanish prince, who gave nam(; to the place of her burial, still 
called Tailton, in Meatli. — Mac Gcoghegan. 



211 

Others would have them called Bolgae, from bolg, a 
quiver, as excelling in archery ; others from the Irish 
word bol, a poet or sage, as eminent in those 
several characters. 

They come nearer to the truth who think the 
name to be connected with superstition, and derived 
from the worship which they paid their gods. For 
Bel, in the language of the Celts, the Germans, and 
all the northern nations, stood for Sol or Apollo, the 
sun ;* and was indiscriminately called Bal, Beal, and 
Sol, intimating his dominion as lord of the world. 
This they received from the Phoenicians, the authors 
of such superstition, who in the infancy of their 
false zeal, scrupled not to offer human sacrifices to 



* " Let us adore," says the Gayatri, or holiest text of the 
Vedas, as translated by Sir William Jones, " the supremacy 
of that divine Sun, the godhead, who illuminates all, who 
recreates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, 
whom we invoke to direct our understanding aright in our 
progress towards his holy seat. What the sun and light are to 
this visible world, that are the supreme good and truth to the 
intellectual and invisible universe, and as our coporeal eyes 
have a distinct perception of objects enlightened by the sun, 
thus our souls acquire certain knowledge by meditating on the 
light of truth which emanates from the Being of beings ; that 
is the light by which alone our minds can be directed in the 
path to beatitude. Without hand or foot he runs rapidly and 
grasps firmly; without eyes he sees, without ears he hears all ; 
he knows whatever can be known ; but there is none who knows 
him. Him the wise call, the great supreme pervading Spirit." 

p2 



212 



1 



their Baal, though he afterwards condescended to 
acquiesce in the substitution of brute immolation.* 
Hence, the first of May is called in Irish, La Beal 
teine, that is, the day of the fire of Beal. Several 
of the Irish mountains, too, retain the name of Cnoc 
greine, that is the mountain of the sun; and in 
many of them are to be seen the frame-work of the 
altars, and the delapidated ruins of the temples of 
those Gentile idolaters. The old Irish name for 
year, was Beal-aine, now Bliadhain, meaning, liter- 
ally, the circle of Beal, that is the period of the 
sun's annual revolution ; all which terms they bor- 
rowed from the rites and religious ordinances of the 
Phoenicians. From their bal, too, which signifies 
power or wisdom, is derived our bale, of the same 
import, and balg, a man of letters. 

Moreover, we may refer to the worship paid by 
those tribes to Sol or Beal, the above mentioned 
names of Siol m Bolga, and Slioght m Bealidh ; for 
in the Phoenician tongue, slil means a cymbal or 
timbrel, and shiol, fire. The Gallionii or Gallaenii, or 
clan Gallion, a tribe of the Fir-Belgae or Bolgse^ 
who settled in Ireland, are supposed to have taken 



^ Ilumaiiis saoriHciis priiis cultus, postea belluinis. — The 
Spaniards would seem to have reversed the case in their 
worship of Mars, for Strabo tells us, that '* Omnes, qui in 

montibus degunt Marti caprum immolant, praetereaque 

captivos et equos." 



213 

their name from Gallena, a city of the Atti'ebatii, 
who bordered upon the Belgae in Britain. From 
them Lagenia,* which was formerly considered the 
fifth province of Ireland, was called Coiged Galian. 
It is to me, too, as clear as conviction can make it, 
that they themselves were so designated, from the 
Phoenician name gallein, which means, departing or 
transported to another country, more properly 
applied to voluntary emigrants. Unless, perhaps, the 
name may have been derived from their idolatrous 
ritual ; for the Phoenicians used to give the name of 
gaelin, to heaps of stones huddled up together, on 
which they sacrificed their victims. From hence 
numberless Spanish towns, such as Galinda, Galin- 
do, Galinday, Galindush, Galinsoga, Gallinar, Gal- 
liner, Gallinera, &c. &c. would appear to have been 
denominated. 

We would appear, also, to have amongst us some 
vestiges of the clan Galhon or Gallionii, in Gallian, 
the name of that tract of country encompassing the 
greatest part of Kildare, Carlow^ and the Queen's 
counties ; in Gallen, the name of a barony in the 



* In Lagcnid statuit Regis et RegincB comitatus Thomas 
RatclifFe, Sussexiae comes, Iberniai prorex, anno 15oG, reg- 
nantibus Philippo et Maria. Indeque capitale Regis comitatus 
oppidum Phillippi Biirgus', Regince verc> comitatus Maria: 
Burgus vocantur. Wicklow in Lagenia, patrum memoria co- 
mitatus jus induit. (V. OTIahert. loc. laud. p. 27. Burg 
Ibern. Dominic.) 



214 



county Mayo : in Gallen Hills, the name of a town 
in the county Tyrone ; in Gallion Point, the southern 
point of the harbor of Castle-haven, in the county 
Cork. 



CHAP. XXHI. 



The People called Miledh, supposed to have lyeen Milesians — 
The Milesians, fable of the Spanish prince — Miledh and 
Milesians why so called — Miletum a colony of the Phoeni- 
cians — Cities built by the Milesians — Vestiges of the Miled 
still in this Country. 

The people called Miledh, and so frequently 
alluded to in the ancient poetry of Ireland, are sup- 
posed by the more modern antiquarians to have be- 
longed to the Milesians. These latter again, it is 
believed, were the posterity of the Carthagenians, 
who sailed from Spain, under the conduct, say they, 
of Heber* and Heremon, the two sons of Milesius, the 



* Heber, after this first advantage, having refreshed his 
troops, advanced into the country to make further discoveries, 
in hopes of meeting some of the colony, that were scattered by 
the storm some time before, and after a long and fatiguing 
march, arrived at Invear-Colpa, where he found Heremon with 



215 

king of Spain, and settled in Ireland with a host of 
followers. In the poetical histories of the Druids, 
we have it upon record that this island was inhabited 
by the Miledh Slioght Fene.and the Miledh Espaine ; 
which first names have been interpreted to us by later 
times, as equivalent to Milesius the Phoenician. The 
learned of our day, however, think that Miledh is a 
perverted abbreviation from ^NI Bealedh, meaning 
the worshippers of Beal, and figuratively, the noble 
Druids, Fene, too, they say, means wise, so that 
Miledh Fene, to them, would represent the wise and 



his division, by whom he was informed of the disasters that had 
befallen his brothers Aireagh and Colpa, who had perished on 
that coast. The brothers now uniting their forces, formed their 
plans of operation for a campaign. They determined to go in 
quest of the enemy, who, according to the reports of their 
scouts, was not far off. They began their march, and after a 
few days came up with the three princes of the Tuatha de 
Danains, in the plains of Tailton, with a formidable army ready 
to meet them. The action began, and this battle, which was 
to decide the fate of both parties was for a long time doubtful, 
the troops on both sides making extraordinary efforts ; the latter 
to defend their patrimony against the invaders, who wished to 
wrest it from them ; the former, less to revenge the death of their 
countryman, than to obtain the possession of an island which 
had been destined for them, according to the prophecy of the 
druids. At length the three princes of the Tuatha de Danains, 
together with their principal officers, having fallen, the army 
was put into disorder, and the rout became so general, that 
more were killed in the pursuit than on the field of battle. 
That day, so fatal to the Tuatha de Danains, decided the em- 
pire of the island in favour of the Milesians. — 3Jac Gcoyhegan. 



216 

noble Druids, and Miledh Slioglit Fene, a wise and a 
generous offspring. In like manner would some 
writers make Miledh Easpainne, the son of Golam, un- 
der whose guidance and auspices the Iberi established 
themselves in the south of Ireland, to be equal in 
import with Milesius the Spaniard ; though others 
asserting that easpainne, espaine, or hespin, stood in 
the old Celtic for a bare, arid, and barren coun- 
try, understood by the words, miledh espainne mac 
golam, noble, from the barren mountany country of 
Gael. 

But it being an acknowledged fact that the Miledh, 
or Milesians, whichever you choose to call them, were 
a Phoenician race, who put into this country from 
the coast of Spain, I, for one, would derive their 
name, not from Milesius king of Spain — who has no 
existence in the records of that kingdom" other than 
what the fictions of the poets invest him with — but 
from some one of the Phoenicians who had sailed over 
into Spain from Miletum, which was one of their 
very earliest colonies.* The Phoenicians, we know. 



* Greek history informs us that Miletum in Ionia was first 
colonised by Phoenicians from Crete — that this colony was at- 
tacked by the Persians and transplanted into Persia — that the 
Phoenicians and Milesians joined with the Persians against the 
Ionian s, at the battle of Mycale, and that they were made 
slaves by the Persians, but kindly treated by Alexander— and 
in the time of Psamiticus a colony of Milesians settled in 
Greece. The Sacai joined the Persians at the battle of 



217 

after their taking possession of Miletum, disseminated 
themselves in tribes in every direction. These are 
the Milesians who pursued the Thessalonians from 
Caria, and who took up their residence, in the first 
instance, on the coast of Anatolia. To them is at- 
tributed the origin of the cities of Trebezon,* Hera- 
clea, or Penderaclea^f Sinope, J &c. After the ship- 
wreck of Pylades and Orestes, near the^' temple of 
Diana at Taurus, the Milesians visited the Crimasa, 
and laid the foundations of the cities of Theodosia or 
Kafa,§ Chersonesus, and Ohera on the Dnieper. They 
also, besides other cities, built that of Odessus, or 
Barna, on the western shore of the black sea. But 
their principal one seems to have been Appollonia, or 
Sizeapolis,|l which was exceedingly fortified, and con- 



Marathon, and broke the centre of the Athenians. The Liber 
Lucanes, an ancient Irish MS., informs us that one colony of 
the Milesians arrived in Ireland in the last year of Camboath 
(Cambyses) son of Ciras (Cyrus). — It then describes the divi- 
sions of Alexander's empire among his generals, and says, 
another colony arrived in Ireland in that year wherein Alex- 
ander defeated Daire, i. e. Darius. — Vallancey. 

* Trebezon k thrap eshan, fumus ex igne procedens ante 
idolum. Heraclea, Herculi dicata. 

t Penderaclea, kpeneh, facies. Est facies sen simulachrum 
Herculis. 

I Sinope k zinip, thiara, vitta, insigne capitis ornamentura. 
§ Kafttf k Kafaz, saltavit, saliit; vel k Cafa, incurvavit, 

inclinavit, flexit corpus, genua, quod prosternentes se faciunt : 
utrumque denotat cultum idololatricum. 

II Sizeopolis k Phocn. ziz, frons arboris, arbor :"plur. ziziii: 



218 

structed partly in the peninsula and partly in the 
little island of Pontus, where the celebrated statue 
of Apollo— which Lucullus afterwards brought to 
Rome — was worshipped with all solemnity. Pieces of 
money, stamped at Appollonia by the Milesians, bore 
the impression of Apollo's head, with this motto, 
^' Dorionos,"* that is, the bountiful. 

Miledh, therefore, is not the name of a particular 
race, but of the city of Miletum ; nor is Milesian 
a proper or individual name, but a gentile or na- 
tional one. For the Milesii were the inhabitants 
of Miletum, and any thing appertaining or belonging 
thereto was called Milesian. Thus we read of 
Thales the Milesian ; Anaximander, Anaximenes, 
Hecateus, the Milesians ; so also we find Milesi- 
ourgos to signify any thing done by Milesian art — as 
Milesian tapestry — Milesian wool, which was cele- 
brated all over the world. 

But the name of the city of Miletum itself would 
appear to have been given it by the Phoenicians, 
from milet to escape or be liberated, which accords 
with the history of the first tribes of the Caananites, 
who had fled before the face of Joshua and the Isra- 



quasi disceres, urbs in arboreto vel neraore : vel vl ziz, flos : 
urbs florida. Odesus a Odesa, fructus. Barna a bariity advena, 
peregrinus. 

* John Edward Alexander's Travels to the seat of War in the 
Eastf through Russia and the Crimea, T. 1. p. 2ii3. 



219 

elites. We should observe, also, that Miletum was 
otherwise called Anactoria, from Anach, a descen- 
dant of Anak, of whom many of the Phoenicians used 
to boast as the founder of their family. 

Ireland would seem to retain still some traces of 
the name Miledh in that of Malahide, a town in the 
barony of Coolock, in the county Dublin, just beside 
a fort called the court of Mai abide, and in that of 
Malahidert, a village in the same county, &c. 

Let us now pass over to other names connected 
with this. Espaine, Hespin, or Spania, is a word 
not of Celtic but of Hebraic and Syriac extraction, 
being derived from Span, or Sapan, a rabbit. Hence 
the name of Spania as abounding in them ; and this 
is the epithet by which Catullus distinguished that 
part of Spain at present called Celtiberia * But the 
Phoenicians very deservedly extended the name to 
the country at large, seeing the multitude of those 



* We have the greatest authority from the aticient chronicles 
of Ireland to believe that there was a strict friendship and cor- 
respondence by navigation and traffic between the Spaniards 
and Irish, from the time that Eochard the son of Eire, the last 
king of the Firbolgs in Ireland, was married to Tailte, the 
daughter of Maghmore, king of Spain, so that the people of the 
two nations were well acquainted with one another long before 
Brah, the son of Breagar, was born. And this account is suf- 
ficient to destroy the credit of that idle fancy that Ith and the 
family of Briogan first discovered the country of Ireland, with 
an optical instrument, from the top of the tower of Brigantia. 
Keating. 



220 

animals so overwhelmingly immense that they seemed 
to venture even to dispute its possession with man 
himself; nor did trees, roots, plants, and vegeta- 
bles alone give way, before their dense and desolating 
myriads, but the castellated dome was not safe from 
their attack, and whole towns have been overturned 
by their undermining. Most ancient writers, there- 
fore, impressed with this fact, treat of the rabbit as 
if it were an animal peculiar to Spain. Hence we 
may see how little weight is to be attached to the 
reveries of those who maintain that, as Lusitania was 
so named from lusus, play, so was Spain from Pan 
the Arcadian, one of Bacchus's associates. For His- 
pania, the Latin for Spain, some of the ancients 
wrote Espaine, and now frequently Spania, which 
Vossius and Bochart confirm by the testimony of 
Paul the apostle, Theophilus, Eusebius,^Epiphanius, 
and others. Nay more, Eulogius, has in more places 
than one, written Ecclesia Spanioe, (that is the church 
of Spain) which Ambrosius Morus erroneously and 
unjustifiably transcribed into Ecclesia Hispanise. 
Hence the color black is called spanus by Nonus, 
and Spanicum argentum, for Hispanicum, (that is 
Spanish silver) occurs in Athanasius Bibliotheca, in 
his life of the Pontiffs. Sliog, as we have said, is a 
Phoenician name, indicating a certain^ species of 
superstition. 

It remains that we say something about Fene, or 
Peine, Fane, Fine, or Fion, an ancient Irish clan. 



221 

of whom frequent mention occurs in the ancient 
chronicles and ballads of this island. Some would 
look for the etymology of these names in the Irish 
fine, which signifies a tribe or nation ; others in feine, 
the celebrated ancient militia of our country ; others 
lastly, would expect to find it in feine, a steward or 
husbandman. There are those too to whom those 
words denote a standard, or ensign, or whatever is 
erected in an elevated and conspicuous position ; and, 
when connected with sacred matters, the officiating 
high priest or sacrificer ; a learned man ; a Druidical 
temple ; as the Romans gave the name of fana to 
the shrines wherein they worshipped their idols. 

They, however, come nearer to the truth who con- 
ceive that by these words is indicated some one of 
the ancient colonies of the Phoenicians, who settled 
in Ireland. For it is an admitted and established 
opinion, that the Phoenician name was invented by 
the Greek in imitation of the Hebrew form of ex- 
pression, phene-anak, that is, the sons of Anak, or 
Anaceans. Anak, as we have said, was a giant, and 
the son of Arba, whence comes Anakim, in the plu- 
ral, giants ; and being the founder of that race , the 
Greeks thought that the inhabitants of all Syria had 
derived their origin from him. Indeed, it were more 
correct to say Bene-anak, but the Greek always 
soften the Hebrew letter B (beth) in this manner, as 
we find Josephus writing sopho instead of soba, a 
region of Syria. It is no wonder, therefore, that 



999 



Bene-anak, Phoenices, and Punici, or Poeni, should 
all stand for the same thing, the Phoenicians. In 
former times Beanak^ or Phianak, was used as an 
abbreviation for Ben anak, and from the name thus 
abbreviated, the African Phoenicians* were called 
Poeni, and those of Iberia, Fene, retaining in either 
case only the first member of the name, Fene-anak. 
But that the Phoenicians affected the name of 
Bene-Anak, or sons of the Anaceans, and would have 
them themselves so designated, you may infer from 
the fact of their calling the city of Carthage, built 
by them, Chadre Anak, that is the seat of the Ana- 
caeans, as you may see in the Paenulus of Plautus ; 



* It appears, that like some of the rest of the Pagan Afri- 
cans, they \7orship a being, who, according to their imagina- 
tions, can neither do them any good nor any evil. And which 
is still more remarkable, they worship another being inferior to 
this, whom they believe can do them much injury, unless his 
anger is appeased. This being- they imagine frequently appears 
to them under the most tremendous form, somewhat resembling 
the ancient satyrs of the Greeks; and when they are asked how 
they can believe in such absurdities, so inconsistent with the 
divine attributes ; their answer is to the following import : 
" We follow the traditions of our ancestors, whose first parents 
having sinned against the grand captain, they fell into such a 
neglect of his worship, that they knew nothing of him, nor how 
to make their addresses to him." This may serve to shew, that 
however ignorant they may be in other respects, yet in this dark 
tradition they have some faint notion of the fall of man, which 
indeed is acknowledged by all the world, except some letter 
learned men among ourselves. 



223 

and, as we have observed in a preceding part of this 
chapter, their calling Miletum, a colony of theirs, 
Anactoria, from Anacte, that is, a descendant of the 
great Anak. For, although, but few of the Phoeni- 
cians had really owed their origin to the family of 
the Anaceans — as Bochart has before observed — yet 
the celebrity of the race had charms for many to make 
them wish and lay claim to it as their parent stock. 
Besides, in all nations, it is handed down as a pre- 
sumptive usage, that they select their name from the 
elite of their nobility ; and amongst the Canaanites 
no family could compete with this either, in personal 
valor or the collateral influence of a splendid name. 
They were superhuman in strength, and so gigantic 
in stature that, compared to them, the Israelites ap- 
peared like so many locusts.* 



* Pepin the Short, perceiving himself the object of contempt 
amongst a particular set of his courtiers, who on account of his 
figure, which was both thick and low, entertained but a 
mean idea of his personal abilities, invited them, by way 
of amusement, to see a fair battle between a bull and a lion. 
As soon as he observed that the latter had got the mastery over 
the former, and was ready to devour him, *' Now, gentlemen," 
says he, " who amongst you all has courage enough to inter- 
pose between these bloody combatants? Who of you all dare 
rescue the bull, and kill the lion ?" Not one of the numerous 
spectators would venture to undertake so dai)gerous an enter- 
prise ; whereupon the king instantly leaped into the area, drew 
his sabre, and at one blow severed the lion's head from his 
shoulders. Returning without the least emotion or concern to 



224 



CHAP. XXIV. 



The Clan Cuilean, a people of Ireland, where settled — Called 
also Hy-namor — Etymology of these names — The Deasii in 
what part of Ireland they settled -Their leader — Whence 
named — The Dareni, inhabitants of Voluntia — City of 
Derry, why so called — Whether the Dareani derive their 
name from the Greeks or the Phoenicians — The Gadeliani, 
whether from Gadela — Whether it be a Phoenician name. 

To the list of the ancient inhabitants of this coun- 
try we are to add the name also of the people called 
Clan Cuilean, who resided in a part of the county 
Clare, on the banks of the river Shannon, comprising 
all that tract formerly known by the name of Tho- 
mond. Clain, in Irish,* signifying sprung from or 



his seat, he gave those who had entertained but a mean opinion 
of him, to understand, in a jocular way, that though David was 
low in stature, yet he demoHshed the great Goliah ; and that 
though Alexander was but a little man, he performed more 
heroic actions than all his tallest officers and commanders put 
together. 

* What Erin calls in her sublime 

Old Erse or Irish, or it may be Punic; — 
(The Antiquarians who can settle time, 

Which settles all things, Roman, Greek or Runic, 



225 

genitive, the name of this people is generally ren- 
dered the growth or harvest of wheat near the water. 
They w'ere also called Hy na mor, W'hich sounds to 
the natives as the maritime region. But, in my 
opinion, clan cuilean^ is a name compounded of the 
Phoenician words, clain culain, that is, the summoned 
together from different or mixed nations, intimating 
their composition to be diversified and motley. Or, 
may be, of Clanu Culain, that is, the summoned Ba- 
bylonians, for the Chaldeans, who had accompanied 
the Isaraelites on their return into Syria from their 
captivity, attached themselves afterwards to the 
Phoenicians in their maritime expeditions, as well as 
in transplanting their colonies ; and, in the Chaldee 
language, Clanu and Calnah meant Babylon. Hy 
na mor, also, is a Phoenician name from, inamor, a 
variegated or party-coloured people in a sea-girt 
province. 

The Deassii, the Decies, formerly Deassies, an an- 
cient people of Ireland inhabited the southern sec- 
tion of the county Meath, and the northern bank of 
the rivers LifFey and Rye, which whole line of coun- 
try was very appropriately designated by the name 



Swear that Pat's language sprung from the same clime 

With Hannibal, and wears the 'Jyrian tunic 
Of Dido's alphabet ; and this is rational 
As any other notion, and not national :) — 

Byron. 

Q 



226 

of Ean, or Magh Ean, that is, the region of waters. 
Their leader is supposed to have been named Mag- 
ean, or Ean-gus, afterwards abridged to CEngus, 
which is usually interpreted prince of the region of 
Ean. A tribe of this nation was afterwards trans- 
ported to the county Waterford. This region is at 
present divided into two baronies, namely, Decies 
within Drum, bounded on the east and south by the 
Atlantic ocean, and on the west by the black water ; 
whilst, Decies witJwut Drum, bounds it on the 
north, and is itself the other part of this tract. 

The name of Deassies, or Deassii, is supposed to 
be derived from the Irish word deas, southern, and 
to indicate a southern people. This is not impro- 
bable. I would venture to guess, however, that they 
were a Phoenician tribe, so called from deassin, or 
deassain, or rather deazzin, that is, exulting ; from 
duaz, which means, he exulted with joy, to which 
daizz, joy, corresponds ; and there is no one who 
is not aware of the dancing and rioting of idol- 
ators during their sacrificial feasts.* The barony of 



* Although it is difficult to discover any relation between 
dancing and religion, yet among the Pagans it constantly made 
a part of their worship of the gods. It was usual to dance 
round the altars and statues; and there was at Rome, an order 
of priests, called the Salii ; they were dedicated to the service 
of Mars, and they danced on particular days, through the 
streets, in honour of their god, and had their name from that 
very ceremony. Indeed, religious dancing was so much the 



227 

Deece, in the county Meath, which Seward tells us 
was formerly called Decies, or Desies, as ^vell as 
another barony of the same name, Decies, or Desies, 
in the county Waterford, are vestiges in this country 
of the once existence there of the Deessii. In Spain 
too, the Phoenicians would seem to have had a tribe 
of this name, I mean the inhabitants of the old Can- 
tabrian city of Decium, which is surrounded by the 
river Aturia. 

Baxter is of opinion that the Dareni, or Darnii, 



taste of the Pagans, that the poets made the gods dance along 
with the graces, the muses, and virtues. When the Jews kept 
the feast of the golden calf, they sat down to eat and to drink, 
and rose up to play, which means to dance, and undoubtedly, 
they learned this in Egygt. Arnobius, an ancient Christian 
writer, asked the Pagans, if their Gods were pleased with the 
tinkling of braes, and rattling of cymbals, or with the sound of 
drums and musical instruments. The idolaters in other parts 
of the world, even to this day, have the same esteem for this 
custom, and the greatest part of the worship they pay to their 
deities consists in dancing. On the whole it appears, that 
dancing was first practised by the heathens in their temples, as 
a part of their religious worship, to point out their gratitude to 
their gods, either for general, or particular favors; nor have 
the Christians been altogether free from this custom. The 
Christians of St. Thomas, dance in honor of that saint, before 
which they cross themselves, and sing a hymn. The men dance 
in ono apartment, and the women in another, but both observe 
the greatest decency. At present, however, there are but few 
Roman Catholics who pay much regard to this ceremony, and 
in all probability it will soon fall into disrespect and cease to 
be practised. — Hurd. 

r.2 



228 

the ancient inhabitants of Voluntia, mentioned by 
Ptolemy, gave its name to the city of Deny ; as also 
to Dairmach, which is interpreted the oaken city, 
called also Armach, that is, the lofty city, now Ar- 
magh. He furthermore thinks that they themselves 
were so designated, as if descendants of the oak, 
seeing that Ptolemy names them Darinoi, or Darnii, 
for dar, in the British, is an oak ; and eni, or geni, to 
be born. But I submit it to the learned to deter- 
mine whether it be not from the Phoenician darin, 
meaning foreigners, soujourners ; or darin, villas, 
habitations. From the Dareni, or Darnii, I should 
imagine that the island of Darinis, in the Black- 
water, in the mouth of the bay of Youghal, in the 
county Cork, took its name. After the introduc- 
tion of Christianity, this was called Molana, from 
St. Molanfid, who founded a convent therein, in the 
sixth century. You will pronounce the same judg- 
ment on another island of the same name, near the 
city of Wexford, where St. Nemham erected a mo- 
nastery, in the middle of the seventh century. 

Spain has an old town called Dapnius, on the 
banks of the river Muga, in the country of the 
Ilergetes, whose inhabitants, like the Irish, are named 
Darnii, in the ancient chronicles of the kingdom. 

The Gadeliani, an old Irish tribe, are commonly 
supposed to have derived their name from Gadelas, 
an ancient progenitor of the Milesians. Whether 
this Gadelas be a character of the real history of this 



229 

country, or only like Milesius, the reputed prince of 
Spain, an imaginary fiction for the songs of the poets, 
I leave to the decision of more competent judges. 
I cannot, however, but express my perfect disregard 
to what Geraldus tells us of the Irish being called 
Gaidheli from some grandson of Phenius, who was 
distinguished as a linguist. My dissent from his 
opinion I choose to couch in this strong phrase, not- 
withstanding his being backed therein by Nennius, 
Malmura, Eochodius, and other writers of the ninth 
century, and countenanced by the approbation of 
the more modern O'Connor. 

But what if Gadelas, or Gadhelus was some con- 
spicuous and honorable individual, belonging to 
some tribe of the Phoenicians,f whose descendants 
were after him called Gadeliani ? F©r gadel, in their 
language means, great, illustrious ; and gadelin, emi- 
nent, superior men. Hence, also, the inhabitants of 
two ancient cities, but now only petty towns, of the 



* lu fine, there are no names or dogmata of the Phoeni- 
cians recorded by either Greek or Latin authors that are not to 
be found or explained in the ancient Irish, a strong collateral 
proof that the Phoenicians of the old Greeks were not Cana- 
anites or Tyrians, but that mixed body of Persians, that is, 
Scythians, Medes, &c. whom Sallust informs you, from the 
best authority, the Punic annals, composed the Gaetulians and 
Nuraidians of Africa, the first settlement of the Phoenicians in 
that country ; and the same people that Varro, Pliny, and Jus- 
tin bring from thence to Spain, conformable to the ancient his- 
tory of Ireland.— Fa//ancfy. 



230 

name of Gadella, in the district of the Astures and 
Edetani, in Spain, were called Gadelin, or Godeli- 
ani ; for I am satisfied that those cities had obtained 
this name as expressive of their magnitude and their 
magnificence. 



CHAP. XXV. 



The Degades, settlers in Ireland — In what part — Whether a 
body of fishermen — The Tuat de Doinan arrive in this 
country — Whence come — Whether a tribe of the Caledo- 
nians — Why called Ulleigh — Origin of their name — The 
Caledonians of Brigantine origin — The Irish Cangani, 
why so called. 

The Degades, an ancient people of Ireland, are 
supposed by some to have been a colony of the Lein- 
ster* Scoti, who settled in the western quarter of 
the county Kerry, some years before the advent of 
Christ. The name is supposed to have been made 
up of the Irish words, de ga deas, implying a situa- 



* Leighan, an axe or spear, it being with such weapons the 
Leinster people fought. — The country was thence called Lein- 
ster, from leighan, as above, and ter, a territory. 



231 

tion at the south of the sea. To me, however, it 
seems to express a colony of Phoenician fishermen ; 
for degah, in that language, is fish, collectively ; deg, 
to fish ; dughioth, fishing cots or wherries made of 
rushes ; deg^ a fisherman, and adesa, profit, emolu- 
ment ; so that Degades ^vould appear a name abbre- 
viated for deg-adesa, or expressive of fishermen who 
acquired their support from the profits of that pur- 
suit. 

The Tuatha de Danaan,* or Danans, usually ren- 



t In my work upon the ** Round Towers," it is proved to a 
demonstration, that these (who by the way had nothing to do 
with Britain) were the real authors q/*/re/awd's ancient ce- 
lebrity. They arrived here about 1200 years before Christ, 
under the conduct of three brothers, Brien, Juchorba, and Ju- 
chor, and immediately gave battle to the Firbolgs, commanded 
by Eogha their king, at Moyturey near lake Masg, in the ter- 
ritory of Partrigia otherwise Partry, in the county of Mayo. 
The latter lost in one day the battle and possession of the island, 
and were so reduced as to seek an asylum in the islands of the 
north. Nuagha, the Tuatha Danaan general, having lost a 
hand in the action, had one made of silver, whence he attained 
the name of Airgiodlamh, which signifies silver hand. This 
narrative had been long supposed a day dream of fiction, which 
legendary chroniclers had of old trumped up. The hour, how- 
ever, has arrived for the restoration of truth ; and I rejoice that 
I am the Jirst person to announce to my countrymen that this 
relic, or silver hand, is still extant. It was exhibited to the 
^'Society of Antiquaries," a short time ago, who, of course, knew 
nothing about it. The moment I saw it I exulted in the con' 
Jirmation of our ancient history ; and did not hesitate, at once* 
intimating to the Gentleman who had the kindness to gain me 



232 



1 



dered the northern race^ were an ancient colony in 
this country, situated behind the Fir-Bolgoe ; they are 
supposed to have originated from Britain^ and to 
have been a tribe of the Caledonians, who emigrated 
over from Mull-Galloway, or Cantire, full an hundred 
years before the Christian aera. The old Irish poets 
seem to know nothing of the chieftains of the first 
colony of the Caledonians, or Danani as they call 
them ; but they are diffuse on the subject of their ar- 
rival, which happened only a few years before the 
birth of ^Christ. These were accustomed to style 
themselves Ulleigh, which some would interpret as 
worshippers of the sun, for in the Celtic dialect, ull 
is the same as sol, or beal, which is the sun. Ac- 
cordingly, their country was called Ulladh or Ullin, 
and these names still represent to the native, the pro- 
vince of Ulster. All that tract of country also, im- 
mediately encompassing the present county of Down 
was called Ulla informer times. Other relics of this 
name may be traced in Ullard, a village in the barony 
of Gowran county of Kilkenny ; and in Ulloe, a 
little town in the barony of Coonagh, in the county 
Limerick. 



access to their museum, that it was the long missing arm of 
Nuaf^ha Airgiodlamh. I now give the inscription, which is in 
old Irish characters, tor which I am indebted to the gentle- 
man above alluded to, whose name — T. Crofton Cioker — 
perhaps, I may be pardoned if 1 publish. 



233 

But as some will have Ulleigh and Ulladh to be 
Celtic names borrowed from their custom of worship- 
ping the sun^ so, perhaps, the name Tuath de Doinan 
may have originated from the form of that worship, 
which we know the Phoenicians offered to their idols, 
prostrate and silent before their banquets. For tuath 
donian, in that language, means those who meditate 
in silence and fasting. Nor yet would I reject the 
conjecture, nor deny the fact, of tuath being an 
Irish geographical term signifying the due north. 

The Caledonians were so named from Caledonia, 
at this day called Scotland, after the Scoto Brigan- 
tine Irish, and formerly Valentia by the Romans, 
after the name of their emperor Valentinian. They 
were of Brigantine extraction, and their constant 
allies, or rather vassals, in their several wars. The 
name of Caledonian is supposed to have been de- 
rived from the woods which they inhabited, being 
called in the British, Kelydhon, or Colydhon, and the 
woods themselves, coit kelydhon. Nor, indeed, were 
the foreign Brigantines called Keloi on any other ac- 
count than that of their living in the woods, as the 
ancients generally did, nor were the Caletes, a peo- 
ple of the Attrebates, so denominated for any other 
reason. 

In the'Scoto-brigantine dialect of the present day, 
coil, means a wood. In the Greek too, kalon, means 
the same, as did, cala, in the ancient Roman ; whence 



234 

are derived caliga, a wooden shoe ; and calones, 
hewers of timber. 

I suspect, however, that the Caledonians were 
Phoenicians, who were expert in astrology ; or, per- 
haps, Chaldeans, associates of the Phoenicians ; for 
Ghaledain, or Chaldein signifies both, and that, there- 
fore, Caledonia was named after them, and not vice 
versa. 

The Cngaanii, or Ganganii, an" ancient people of 
Ireland, mentioned by Ptolemy, were settled in the 
western section of the county Clare, in what is at 
present called the barony of Burrin, on the south of 
the bay of Galway. Baxter takes them to be de- 
scendants of the Ceangi, or shepherds of the Dam- 
nii, who dwelt in a district called, from the summer 
exposure, and the habitual recumbency of shepherds, 
Somersseten, or, sestival sitters. Tacitus calls them 
Cangi. But as from the singular, cang, is formed the 
Latin ceangus, so from^'the plural ceangon, do they 
also form, canganus. Many persons believe that every 
individual state had its own^Ceangi, who were a co- 
lony of minors, or of youthfulj shepherds, passing 
their lives in mountains, in villages, in marshes, or in 
fens, as suited the interests'of their^pastoral occupa- 
tion. Of these, Trogus Justinus says, '' they transfer 
their flocks now to summer, now to winter lawns. 
As formerly, the ancient Romans had amongst the 
Calabrians and Lucanians, so now have the Spaniards 



235 

also amongst the Cantabrians and other states, dis- 
tinct pastures for their flocks, as well in summer as 
in winter." The advocates of this opinion derive 
the word ceangus from the British ceang, or cang, a 
branch, in the same manner, and with the same figu- 
rative licence, as '^youths" in Greek are styled 
" branches of Mars." Others think it compounded 
of cean gan, and interpret it, the external promon- 
tory. Whence Canganii, to them, will express a peo- 
ple residing beside such promontory ; as Burrin, or 
Bhurrin, the ancient seat of those Canganii, means 
an external region. There are those who flatter 
themselves that they have discovered the etymology 
of this name in the Hebrew chanoc, or chanic, ver- 
nal ; and, finally, others who think them called 
Ceangi, from the god Ceangus, the tutelary genius 
of the Cumbri. In a matter so perplexed, and as 
yet so undecided, I would venture to guess that the 
Canganii, or Cangani, were a people of the Canta- 
brians in Hespania Tarraconensis, who were a colony 
of the Massagetae, or else a tribe of Phoenician agri- 
culturists,* and that their name is composed of the 
words can-gannin, a society of gardeners, from gan, 
a garden, applicable as well to trees as to herbs ; 



* Omnium rerum ex quibus aliquid acquintur, nihil est agri- 
culture melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero 
dignius. — Cicero-dc-Offic* l,c. 42. 



236 

or from gan-ganin, the Ganganii, who excelled in 
that department.* 



* But they say, that the modern critics have despised and 
rejected those chimeras of antiquity to which the Scoto-Mile- 
sians aspire, as well as the authorities they produce to support 
them. It is evident that those critics should not be believed 
in respect to the monuments of that people : they were unac- 
quainted with the language in which they were written ; it was 
altogether impossible for them to know it. There are but few 
even among the natives capable of decyphering their ancient 
writings: it is by a particular study only, of the abreviations, 
punctuations, and of the ancient characters of that language, and 
the Oghum, that they can attain to it. The old Scotic lan- 
guage, which was spoken two (or rather three) thousand years 
ago, and which is made use of in their monuments, was entirely 
different from what is now, and has been spoken, within the 
last few centuries ; and has become a jargon by the adoption of 
many Latin, English, and French words. Are these not dif- 
ficulties, which are impossible for a stranger to surmount, who 
attempts to write the history of that country ? If the primi' 
live Irish language be scarcely known by the bulk of the na- 
tion itself, what knowledge can an Englishman have of it? — 

Mac Geoghegan, 
Yet for the antiquities of the written chronicles of Ireland, 
give me leave to say something, not to justifie them, but to 
shew that some of them might say truth. For where you say 
the Irish have alwayes bin without letters, you are therein 
much deceived ; for it is certaine, that Ireland hath had the 
use of letters very anciently, and long before England. — 

Spenser, 



237 



CHAP. XXVI. 



The Aremorici, what nation they were — Whether the Alo- 
brites — Where they settled-^ Whether Aramceans or Phoe- 
nicians — The Alobrites and Morini, why so called — The 
Aradii, inhabitants of the island of Arad— Skilled in naval 
matters — Allies of the Phoenicians — Colonies of them in 
Spain and Ireland — The Armeri called Cardanum by the 
Phoenicians — Vestiges of their residence in Ireland as well 
as Spain, 

The Aremorici, in Irish, Armhorac, or Armho- 
raice, are supposed to have been transmarine 
Britons, namely, the ancient Belgae, that is the Alo- 
brites, or remains of Belgic Britannia, who were 
driven out by the Franks, or Sicambri, into Celtic 
Gaul. They are generally considered as refugees of 
the Belgae, vf\io settled in the British islands, having 
come thither at the season of the Saxon war. The 
Aremorican tract, or line of country they inhabited, 
is by some writers accounted the Saxon shore of the 
Gauls, otherwise called Celtic Gaul, Neustria, and 
Britannia in the Marshes ; Caesar, however, and 
Pliny call it, Aquitania of the Vascons. 



238 

Baxter thinks that they were called Aremorici, 
from armor, or arvor, a shore ; as the Morini, who 
were the Vallonic Flandri, were called, he says, from 
the Celtic words, mor-eni, as if, marigenae, or sea- 
born. With all respect, however, to so high an 
authority, I would venture to guess that this was 
one of the Phoenician tribes who arrived in this 
island, and passed over from it afterwards into Bel- 
gium and Gaul. From them it is probable that the 
ancient city of Ardmore, in the barony of Decies, 
county Waterford, hath derived its name ; as also 
the promontory of Ardmore on the east of the 
Youghal harbor ; and Armoy, a town of the barony 
of Carey, in the county Antrim : just as the Phoe- 
nicians who inhabited the district of Aram in 
Asia Major were indiscriminately called Aramaeans, 
Syrians, and Phoenicians, and, by a junction of the 
two last, Syro-Phoenicians. Whence in the Syriac 
version of the Bible, the Syro-Phoenician woman, 
mentioned in the seventh chapter, and twenty-sixth 
verse of St. Mark, is said to have been *^ from Phoe- 
nicia of Syria." And Josephus declares that the 
Aramaeans were called Syrians by the Greeks. 
Strabo also asserts that some take the Syrians for the 
Arimi, whom they now call Arami. 

The Irish name Armorhac, therefore, would 
appear to consist of the Phoenician words Arami- 
arac, that is, a people, or nation, from the district of 
Aram, namely, from Shur, that is Syria, or Phoenicia. 



239 

For, arac, means a state, or nation, and Arami an 
Aramoean, or Syrian, a native of Phoenicia; it like- 
wise signifies an idolator ; for the first worshippers 
of idols recorded in the sacred Scriptures were, as 
we have above observed, Syrians. 

Alobrith seems an Irish name, signifying a por- 
tion of an ancient stock or tribe ; for, all, in Irish, 
means extraction, or lineage ; allod, antiquity ; and 
brith, a part or fraction of any thing. This I con- 
ceive more rational, than to say that they had been 
called Alobrites as equivalent to Galo-Britones, 
which is Baxter's opinion. Nor is it more unlikely 
if we would suppose it a Phoenician name denoting 
a tribe who had concluded a treaty by the obligation 
of an oath; for, alah, in that language, is an oath 
and, brith, a league or compact, any thing about 
which many deliberate and ultimately agree. 

What if we should consider this Alobrith to be an 
abridgement from Baalbrith,* or berith, that is, the 



* Baal-Berith, or lord of the covenant, was an idol wor- 
shipped by the Sechemite, and many of the idolatrous Israel- 
ites erected altars to him. To him human sacrifices were 
offered ; and it was common to appeal to him as a witness and 
judge in all matters of controversy ; and, especially, when pro- 
mises, covenants, engagements, or treaties of peace were 
entered into. In the most early ages of the world, the Pagans 
made their altars of earth or turf, and they were, for the most 
part, in groves or on hills, and besides offering up sacrifices to 
the gods, they were used for several other purposes. All 
alliances with foreign princes were ratified on the altars, that 



210 

Lord of the Compact ; namely, tlie idol with whom 
the children of Israel had concluded a treaty, after 
the manner of the Phoenicians, and in whose honor 
the Phoenicians had erected a temple in Gebal, a 
mountain and city at the foot of Mount Libanus, 
whence the circumjacent country hath obtained the 
name of Gebalene. This temple was restored in the 
time of Alexander the Great, and consecrated, by 
some despicable enthusiasts of the Pagan priesthood, 
" To Olympian Jove, the patron of hospitality." For 
few things are better known than that the Alobrites, 
as well as the other nations of Gaul, of Belgae, and 
of Britannia, had embraced the idolatry and the rites 
of the Phoenicians. 

It is very probable, also, that the Morini were 
those whom the ancient Irish called Morintinneach, 
high-spirited ; or the Phoenicians, Marin, lords, or 
Morin, teachers. Unless, perhaps, they may have 
been inhabitants of the land of Jerusalem, and so 
denominated from Mount Moriah, which is situated 



the gods might be witness of the faithful performance of them ; 
of this we have many instances both in ancient history and 
poetry. Thus, Hamilcar made his son Hannibal lay his hand 
on the altar, and swear he would never make peace with the 
Komans ; and thus a poet says : — 

*' I touch the sacred altars, touch the flames. 

And all those pow'rs attest, and all their names : 
Whatever chance befal on either side, 
No term of time this union shall divide." 



241 

by the side of Mount Sion. We liave already 
hinted, above, that the Phoenicians, like the other 
nations of antiquity, made it an established rule, that 
whenever they emigrated into foreign countries they 
should, through national affection, and a wish to 
perpetuate the remembrance of the present stock, 
transfer to their tribes and families the names of the 
cities or provinces, mountains or rivers, that were 
associated vdth their childhood ; a fact which we 
could prove by innumerable examples in the con- 
duct, as well of the Phoenicians themselves, as of the 
Celts, the Greeks, nay, of the Romans and the 
Arabians in Spain, and recently in the conduct of 
the Spaniards themselves, in North and South 
America. 

But it may suffice to adduce the instance of the 
Aradii," ancient inhabitants of Ireland, who made 
several voyages and maritime excursions, in com- 
pany with the Phoenicians. These were originally 
inhabitants of the island of Arad, on the coast of 
Phenice, at the mouth of the river Eleutherus, and 
with part of the adjoining continent, such as Antar- 
adus, Marathus, Laodicea, the principal city of the 
island, and which bore the same name, Strabo says 
had been built by some Sydonian exiles, and that 
the Aradians contributed much to the advancement 
of naval science. We must not wonder, therefore, 
when, on allusion to this, we read in Ezekiel's pro- 
phecy, that rowers from Arad and Sidon liad held 



242 

possession of Tyre ; nor when^ in a subsequent 
verse of the same chapter, we find that, in the vigor 
of their bravery, they with all their forces had 
mounted upon its walls, and nobly fought in its 
defence. And not only Tyre but Tripolis, the most 
illustrious city of Phenice, consisted, as Pliny tells 
us, partly of Aradians, and partly of Tyrians and 
Sidonians. 

That from this island the Aradians, in conjunction 
with the Phoenicians, had sailed over into Spain, and 
there built the town of Arades amongst the Astures, 
Aradilli amongst the Vaccei, and Aradueniga 
amongst the Carpetani, all called after their own 
name, is to me certain as demonstration can make it. 
Ardisa also, formerly a city, now a small town of 
Celtiberia ; Ardisalsdo and Ardisana, villages in the 
country of the Astures ; Ardaiz, amongst the Canta- 
brians, and others of that kind in various quarters of 
Spain, seem to me indisputably as colonies of the 
Aradians. It is the opinion of a certain very learned 
person, that the river of Araduey also, amongst the 
Palentines, was called after them ; although others 
think the name derived from the Greek, ardeuo, to 
moisten. , 

Again, that from Spain, still in company with the 
Phoenicians, the Aradians had shifted across to our 
coast, and there established a permanent colony, we 
may be assured, I think, from the names of the old 
districts of Ard and Arad Cliach, which comprise a 



243 

great part of the county Tipperary ; as well as of 
the tract of Ardes in the county Down ; and the 
citadel of Ardea in the county Kerry.* I pass over 
the names of other towns, beginning, like the 
Spanish, from the Vvord Ard, and still used popularly 
and vernacularly as their current designations in the 
Irish geography. 

That a tribe of the Armenians, also, along with 
the Phoenicians, had arrived in this country, may be 
inferred from the names of Cany Rock, a town on 
the sea coast of the barony of Balruddery, in the 
county Dublin ; of Knordoe, a town in the county 
Gal way ; of Cahirdonel, a village in the county 
Kerry, where are to be seen the ruins of an old cir- 
cular fortress, almost impregnably fortified, and con- 



* Id the name of this county we discover the commercial 
nation by whom it was first inhabited ; for Cearagh, its Irish 
name, is derived from cear, a merchant; whence comes, ciara- 
ban, a company of merchants, equivalent to the eastern, cara- 
van, of the same signification. 

" O, native, (Kerry!) O, my mother isle! 
How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy 
To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills. 
Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas, 
Have drunk in all my intellectual life, 
All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, 
All adoration of the God in nature. 
All lovely and all honourable things, 
Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel 
The joy and greatness of its future being." 

R 2 



244 

structed of stones truly wonderful in size ; of Cahir- 
dowgan and Cahirdriny, which were camps or forts, 
in the county Cork ; and of Cardangan, a small 
town in the county Tipperary. For Armenia was 
called by the Phoenicians Cardu ; and an Armenian, 
Cardanun; whence Ptolemy calls the lofty mountains 
of this country Gordoi ; and Quintus Curtius, Cordei. 
That this Cardanian or Armenian people had 
seized themselves of Spain also, in conjunction with 
the Phoenicians, we have proof clearer than the 
moonlight, in numberless names of places in that 
country; for instance, Cardena, the name of a river 
of the Vaccei ; Cardenu, or Cardenus, a river of the 
Ilergetes, flowing into the Rubricatum, now the 
Llobregat ; Cardenas, a town of Cantabria ; Carden- 
chosa, a little village of Boetica ; Cardona, a very 
ancient city of the Ilergetes ; with the towns of 
Cardenosa, Cardenete, Cardena, Cardenueta, &c. in 
different parts of the kingdom. 



245 



CHAP. XXVII. 



The Attacoti, inhabitants of Ireland — Whether they were the 
Silures — Whether an ancient or modern people — Whether 
descended from Cuthah, a city of the Persians — Vestiges of 
the Cutheans in Ireland, and in Spain. 

The Attacoti,* mentioned by St. Jerom as ancient 
inhabitants of Ireland, gave their name to the 
country, or rather province, of Attacottia, which the 



* Gibbon has given a very strange perversion to a sentence 
in St. .Terom respecting the Attacotti, which runs thus : *' Et 
quum per sylvas porcorum greges et armcntorum pecudumque 
reperiunt, pastorum nates et ferminarum papillas solere abscin- 
dere, et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari," — which the 
historian thus translates, '* They curiously selected the most 
delicate and brawny parts of both males and females, which 
they prepared for their horrid repasts.'* But he was misled by 
the word pastorum, which is not the genitive plural of pastor, 
a shepherd, but of pastus, meaning well-fed ; and thus the 
sentence should be : *' When the Attacotti, wandering through 
the woods, meet with flocks and herds of black cattle, sheep, 
and pigs, they are in the habit of cutting ott' the rumps of the 
fat or well-fed he beasts, and the udders of the she ones ; and 
consider these as the only delicate parts of the animals." That 



246 



Emperor Constantine, from his own name, after- 
wards called FlaviaCaesariensis. But as this people 
are not to be met with in Ptolemy's commentaries, 
Baxter has been induced to believe that the Silures, 
together with their dependants, the Demeti and 
Cornavii, and the Cangani, who were their vassals, 
again, had obtained this designation at a later period 
of the Roman empire. For what does Attacotti mean, 
he says, but, dwelling in the woods ? For At-a-coit, 
written loosely, means, in the woods. This he con- 
firms by some verse from Condelia, called Prydydh 
Maus, or the great poet ; whence he conjectures 
that the Irish Attacotti were named from the syno- 
nymous term Argoet, and Argoetnys, meaning men 
beside woods ; or, as the old Leomarchus would take 
it, Guyr Argoet. The condition of the country, which 



this custom, barbarous and savage as it is, was frequent amongst 
the ancients is evident, from that text of scripture, which says : 
— Neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the Jield. 
Mr. Bruce, the traveller, threw light upon this command, by 
stating that this practice exists in Abyssinia, where pieces of 
flesh are cut out of the animals alive and eaten ; the creature 
being kept alive for further use. This statement was long con- 
sidered as a traveller's exaggeration, but it has subsequently 
been found to be true. The prohibition might have a two-fold 
object, first, to prevent the imitation of the cruel practices of 
the heathen ; and, secondly, to prevent the light treatment of 
blood, when the blood which was the life of the beast was shed 
in the sacrifices, being emblematical of the blood of the 
covenant. — See Dr. A. Clarke, The Attacotti, however, were 
not Irish at all, but a canton of England. 



247 

every one must be aware from the poem of Higdenus, 
to have been woody and uncultivated, even so late 
as the Norman times, agrees well with this conjec- 
ture, to which we must add Ammianus Marcellinus's 
testimony to the effect, that the Attacoti, assisted by 
the Saxons, the Scots, and the Picts, had ravaged 
and laid waste the Roman province. 

I imagine, however, that their nation was more 
ancient; and would be disposed to refer their arrival 
in this country to the times of the Phoenicians, whom 
it is more than probable the Chutaei had accompanied 
in their maritime excursions. The Chutaei or Chuti 
were natives qf the country of Persis, called Cuth, 
who after the dispersion of the ten tribes were 
carried off from Chuthah and the other cities of that 
empire, into Phoenice, by Salamansar, King of As- 
syria; and they and their posterity were, for the most 
part, so called, because the greater number of them 
were from the city Chuthah. Being intermixed with 
the Phoenicians, they introduced into their cities the 
worship of the idol Nergel, which many suppose to 
have been, tharingol, that is, a dunghill cock, which 
they had perched upon a pole in the air, as the 
herald of the dawn. The word Attacotti, therefore, 
conveys to my ear the same idea as Atha-Chuthi 
did to the Phoenicians, and that is, the arrival of the 
Cutheans ; or as Athar-Cuthi, a place or country 
where the Chutaeans reside ; or as Chutaei scouts. 



248 

in keeping with the character of the people, which 
Zosimus designates as a warlike nation. 

From the Attacotti would seem to have been de- 
rived Annacotty, the name of a town in the county 
Limerick ; for Anna, in the Phoenician, lianna, means 
delightful, acceptable. This name, if we suppose it 
composed of the words Hanna-Chuttai, will mean, 
a place acceptable to the Phoenician Chutheans ; or 
if we suppose its component parts to have been 
Anakia-Chuti, it will then mean the offspring of the 
Phoenician Chutheans. Or, perhaps, it bears refer- 
ence to the idol Ana-Meloch, which the Phoenicians 
borrowed from the Chuthaeans and other Assyrians, 
in which case you may render it by, the oracle of 
Moloch ; — aonah or onah, being, an answer. On 
these points, however, let every one judge as he 
thinks fit. I volunteer my guesses, principally to 
elicit those of others. 

Before any such appear, perhaps the curious in 
antiquarian lore may recognise other vestiges of the 
Cuthaeans in the name, Cot's Rock, now Castlemary, 
in the county Cork, where is to be seen an immense 
stone altar, supported by three others. Inis Cathay, 
too, now Inis Scattery,* an island at the mouth of the 

* Scattery island is about three miles from the shore, and 
contains about one hundred and eighty acres of choice laud : 
a pnory was founded here, by St. Seunan, in the sixth century. 
It is recorded in St. Sennan's life, that during his residence in 



249 

river Shannon, where there is still standing, in toler- 
able preservation, one of the Round Towers in which 
this country abounds, may seem a vestige of Cuthsean 
occupancy ; so may Cath, also the name of a rock 
on the coast of the county Cork ; as well as Cotton, 
an extensive district in the county Down; and Cot- 
land, a small town in the county Kildare. 

That the Phoenicians too, who had originally 
landed in Spain, had been Chuthaeans, appears to be 
indicated by the name of Cotinussa, by which, as 
Festus Avienus and Pliny inform us, the island of 
Gades was once known ; by the names of the towns 
of Cuthar in Bcetica; Cutanda and Cotanda in Cel- 



this island, which was then called Inis Cathay, a ship arrived 
there, bringing fifty noonks, Romans by birth, who were drawn 
into Ireland by the desire of a more holy life and a knowledge 
of the scriptures. This island, called also Inisgatha or Inisga, 
the island in the sea, situated in the mouth of the Shannon, one 
of the most convenient harbors for the Danish and Norwegian 
invaders, who generally came north about round Scotland, was 
for a long time a bone of contention between them and the 
Irish ; and from the multitude of those round forts, said to be 
thrown up by the Danes — though in reality they were erected 
long before their inroads — in the adjoining parishes in the west 
of Clare — it is likely that the Danes was strong in this quarter. 
From the Annals of Munster, Act 55, p. 542, we learn that in 
the year 975, Brien the " Great," King of Munster, at the liead 
of twelve hundred Dalgais troops, assisted by Doinnhall, King 
of Toanhuein, recovered the island of Iniscatteiy from the 
Danes, by defeating Tomhar, the Norman, and his two sons, 
Amblaib and Duibheann. Eight hundred of the Danes, who 
fled thither for safety some time before, were slain in this battle. 



250 

tiberia; Cotar and Cotillo in Cantabria ; Cutian, (two 
of same name) inGallacia; and Cutialla, an immense 
rock of the Pyrenees. To these you may add the 
names of various villas and villages in different 
quarters of that country, such as Goto, Cueto, 
Cotanes, Cotarones, Cotovad, Cotolino, Cotorillo, 
&c. &c. 



CHAP. XXVIIL 



The Druids, Magicians and Soothsayers — 'Whence named — 
The introducers of human immolation and human divination 
amongst the people of the West. 

It is admitted on all hands that the soothsayers 
and magicians, and as such — conformably to ancient 
custom, ^ — the magistrates of the ancient Britons 
and Gauls, had been called Druids in the British 
language.* We have the authority of Pliny for 



* Of all the ancient heathen systems of religion, the Druid- 
ical comes nearest to that of the Carthagenians ; but then it 
will be naturally asked, how, or in what manner did the ancient 
Britons become acquainted with the religion of a people, who, 



251 

stating, that these had transmitted the science of 
the Magi, or the art of Magic, to the Chaldeans and 
Persians. Undoubtedly Orphaeus,* who was one of 
their number, taught music and theology to the 
Greeks .f The Gauls and the inhabitants of the 
British isles, had, as Caesar and Tacitus inform us, 
their own Druids. With both nations did the custom 
of sacrificing human victims to their idols prevail, 
which Cicero and others record of the Gauls, as 
Pliny does of the Britons ; and perhaps it would not 

in point of locality, were situated at avast distance from them? 
To a thinking person, this would afford much instruction, be- 
cause it will serve to convince him, that the account of the 
dispersion of Noah's children, as related in Genesis x. is 
genuine ; and that all idolatry originated from the mistaken 
notions which men embraced, after their dispersion on the face 
of the earth, when they vainly attempted to build the Tower 
of Babel. Lastly, the Carthagenians, or Phoenicians, carried 
on a very extensive commerce with the natives of Britain ; a 
circumstance which could not easily have taken place in those 
barbarous ages, unless their rehgions, manners, and customs 
had nearly resembled each other. That they did so, we have 
many evidences remaining in Britain, particularly in Devon- 
shire and Cornwall ; and to support this assertion, we have the 
testimony of the best Greek and Roman historians. 

* We should observe that the ancient name for a harp, in 
Irish, is Orpheam, an evident derivation from this great musi- 
cian's name. 

t Whilst their first taught creed, the mystic or philosophical 
religion of an earlier age, came to them directly from India 
itself. And of this, Herodotus himself is the authority we 
choose to quote, who admits that the Grecian divinities were 
partly Egyptian and partly Pelasgic. 



be straining commentary too far if we would take 
the observation of Horace, where he calls the 
'' Britons savage to strangers," as allusive to the 
same ; for some persons suppose that they were in 
the habit of immolating strangers, which it is well 
known the inhabitants of the county of Taurus 
had practised without reserve. The Concani too, 
who were a part of the Cantabrians, as we have 
said above, residing in Hispania Tarraconensis, and 
a colony of the Massagetae, had some things in 
common with the Sarmatians^ Thracians, and Scy- 
thians, as far as regards cruelty and beastly pro- 
pensities. 

The word Druid some would derive from the 
Celtico-Germanic, deruidhon, which means exceeding 
wise ; for, der, or, dre, in Celtic, is the same as, deur 
or, door, in the German Celto-Scythic; as are their 
compounds Druides and Deurwitten. Others choose 
to derive it from druis, which, both in the Celtic and 
German, is equivalent to trowis or truvis, that is, a 
teacher of truth and faith. Others from the British 
and German, dru, faith ; by some called tru ; whence 
too, God was called by the antient Germans, Drutin 
or Trudin, as you may see in the gospel of Othfridus ; 
Drudin, therefore, may signify either, divine or faith- 
ful; either term being applicable to the priesthood. 
Others from the old British word, drus, a dagmoii or 
magician ; or the Saxon dry, an enchanter, whilst 
others, in fine, would derive it from the Greek, drus^ 



253 

an oak, and that solely because of Pliny's remark, 
that "^ they make choice of oak groves, neither do 
they celebrate any sacred rites without that tree, so 
much so that they may seem to have been thence 
denominated by a Greek derivation."* What Lucan 
says of them would seem to bear upon this, viz. 
'' deep groves, in remote uncultivated forests." 
Whence the Greeks, by an old taunt, used to call 
them, Saronides, from the worship of old oaks, 
which that word originall} and properly signified. 

They who hold out for the Celtic etymology say, 
that this explanation would be satisfactory enough, 
if the Gauls had received the Druids from the 
Massilienses, and they from the Phocenses. But 
the Druids were unknown to the Greeks, so that we 
must look altogether for their origin in the Celtic, 
especially as it is supposed, on the authority of Caesar 
and Tacitus, that the Gauls had borrowed them from 
the British isles. 

Every one will doubtless judge for himself. To 
my ear the word sounds of a Syro-Chaldaic, or 
Phoenician descent, yet could I not dare to specify 



* In the Irish annals, Magh, a Magian priest, is sometimes 
put for Draoi, a Druid. The Druidical religion was at first ex- 
tremely simple ; but such is the corruption of human nature, 
that it was soon debased by abominable rites and ceremonies, 
in ihe same manner as was practised by the Canaanites, the 
Carthagenians, and by all the heathens in the other parts of the 
world. 



254 

its precise signification. In the Phoenician language, 
dor-ida means a progeny of wise men or benefactors, 
or of such as have the charge of the people ; dor-id, 
a powerful generation ; dra-id, powerful lords ; dru- 
sin^ teachers and instructors, from the singular drus 
or dras ; each and all of which would admirably ac- 
cord with the established and well known literature of 
the Irish Druids,* as well as their power and influence 
amongst barbarous nations^ sunk in vice and devoted 
to the worship of idols. Drur or dreur, also, in 
that language, means exemption from work or ser- 
vitude ; freedom from debt or demand, &c. And we 
know that Caesar has declared of the Druids, " that 
they do not pay tribute in common with others, 
having exemption from war, as well as immunity 
from every other demand." I am not so vain, how- 
ever, as to think that I have altogether in this 
particular hit upon the truth. Mankind are liable 



* The Scoto-Milesians, free and independent, lived within 
themselves, and were separated by their insular situation, from 
the rest of the world ; whilst the Britons were slaves, trampled 
upon by a foreign power, and often harassed by the Picts and 
Scots. The Scoto-Milesians held a superiority over them in 
€very thing : they made war upon them in their o\yn country ; 
they carried away prisoners ; and in tine were a lettered 
people, which cannot be said of the Britons. Shall it be then 
pretended, that, because there were not in the time of Gildas, 
any historical monuments among the Britons, the neighbouring 
nations must have been also without any ? The inferencee 
cannot appear to be a just one.— Mac Geoghegan, 



255 

to err in these matters, but I am greatly deceived, 
if I am not far less distant from the truth than they 
who, in the fondness of their zeal, would boast of 
their success in extracting this and other names from 
the Celtic language, or that of the old Britons and 
Germans.* 

That from the Druids, as well as from the other 
sacrificial forms of the Phoenicians and other nations, 
was introduced into Spain and Gaul, and the 
British islands, the barbarous custom of human 
immolation, called anthropothysia, together with 



* Tartars, who, in Isbrand's account of them, are called 
Daores, and who are a branch of the Orientals, assemble 
themselves together at midnight, both men and women, in 
some commodious place, where one of them falls prostrate on 
the ground, and remains stretched out at his full length, whilst, 
the whole cabal make a hideous outcry to the doleful sound of 
a drum, made on purpose for the celebration of that particular 
ceremony. At the expiration of two hours, or thereabouts, the 
person thus extended, rises as it were in an ecstasy, and com- 
municates his visions to the whole assembly. He is perfectly 
apprized during his trance, of what misfortunes will befall this 
man, and what undertakings that man will engage in with 
success. Each word he utters is listened to with the utmost 
attention, and is deemed as sacred as that of an oracle. All 
their religious worship, however, does not absolutely consist 
in this ; for they have their particular sacrifices as well as 
others. There is a small mountain on the frontiers of China, 
which is looked upon as holy ground, and the eastern Tartars 
imagine their journies will prove unsuccessful, if, as they pass 
by, they neglect to consecrate some part of their apparel to this 
sacred mountain. 



256 

that of liuman divination, called anthropomanteia, 
is a question that no one can contravene. Diodorus 
Siculus speaking of them says, " Whenever they 
deliberate upon matters of importance, they observe 
a wonderful and almost incredible custom : for they 
sacrifice a man, and from some old established ob- 
servation upon matters, affect to know the future by 
the circumstances of his fall, whether it be from some 
accident, or the laceration of his limbs, or the flow 
of his blood.'* Tacitus, too, says, " the Druids held 
it lawful to offer upon the altars the blood of their 
captives, and dive into futurity by the fibres of 
human victims."* This custom the Spaniards observed. 



* When the lights, after being just taken out, were found 
still panting, it was looked upon to be so happy an omen, that 
all other presages were considered as indifferent or of no con- 
sequence ; because, said they, this alone sufficed to make them 
propitious, how unhappy soever they might be. After they had 
taken out the harslet, they blew up the bladder with their 
breath, then tied it up at the end, or squeezed it close with 
their hands, observing at the same time how the passages, 
through which the air enters into the lungs, and the small veins 
which are generaly found there, were swelled ; because the 
more they were inflated, the more the omen was propitious. 
They also observed several other particulars, which it would be 
a difficult matter for us to relate. 

They looked upon it as an ill omen, if while they were rip- 
ping up the beast's side, it rose up and escaped out of the 
hands of those who held it down, and they also looked upon 
it as ill boding, if the bladder, which generally joins to the 
harslet, happened to break, and had thereby prevented the 
taking it out entire ; or if the lights were torn, or the heart 
putritied, and so on. 



257 

having borrowed it, no doubt, from them or some 
others of the Phoenician priesthood. '' The Lusitani," 
says Strabo, ^' study immolation, and inspect the en- 
trails of their victims before they have been cut out : 
they also examine the veins of the sides, and pretend 
to divination by touching. Nay, they prophesy also 
from the entrails of their captives, first covering 
them over with thick cloths : when thus, from be- 
neath, a pulsation can be distinguished, the soothsayer 
instantly predicts from the body of the slain. They 
cut off the right hands of the prisoners of war, and 
consecrate them to the gods." 

The same Diodorus Siculus says, that the Druids 
had a custom '' of offering no sacrifice without a 
philosopher to officiate : for they thought that sacred 
rites should be performed only by men conscious of 
the divine nature, and as such in a near relation 
to the gods."* They attended also at the sacrifices 



* Some of their priests were extremely ingenious, and made 
amulets, or rings of glass, variegated in the most curious 
manner, of which many are still to be seen. They were worn 
as we do rings on the finger ; and having been consecrated by 
one of the Druids, they were considered as charms, or pre- 
servatives against witchcraft, or all the machinations of evil 
spirits. From what remains of these amulets, or rings, they 
seem to have been extremely beautiful, composed of blue, red, 
and green, intermixed with white spots ; all of which contained 
something emblematical, either of the life of the persons who 
wore them, or of the state to which they were supposed t<j 
enter. 



•258 

of the Gauls, at which, TertuUian tells us, they were 
in the habit of offering human victims to Mercury. 
And Menutius Felix says, " the Gauls slay human, 
or rather, inhuman, victims." Strabo, speaking of 
their sacrifices, which had been invented, or at least 
patronized, by the Druids, says, *' they used in their 
sacred offices to pierce some individuals to death by 
arrows, or else crucify them ; or having reared up a 
pillar of hay and stuck a wooden pole therein, they 
used to burn cattle and animals of every description, 
nay, men themselves, whole and unmutilated." And 
Diodorus Siculus, ^^ criminals kept for five years, 
they nail to the stakes, and sacrifice to the gods, and 
with other first fruits, immolate over immense funeral 
piles."* Which practices, as well as the others apper- 
taining to idolatrous ritual, were common to the 
Spaniards and Britons, and its various Celtic tribes. 

But as the first Druids were, in my opinion, the 
sacrificing priests of the Phoenicians, it is very likely 
that they borrowed this bloody and atrocious super- 
stition from the Phoenicians, of whom Porphyry says, 

* And barbarous indeed was the manner in which it was 
done : the victim, stripped naked, and his head adorned with 
flowers, was chained with his back to an oak, opposite the 
place where the Arch-Druid stood ; and while music of all 
sorts, then in use, was playing, the Druid, having invoked the 
gods to accept of the sacrifice, walked forward with a knife in 
his hand, and stabbed the victim in the bowels. The music pre- 
vented his cries from being heard by the people ; it was some- 
times four or five hours before he expired. 



259 

*^ the Phoenicians used to sacrifice on occasions of 
great calamity — whether of war, of draught, or of 
pestilence — some certain one of their dearest friends, 
appointed for this purpose by common suffrage." 
And Eusebius : '' The Phoenicians used yearly to 
sacrifice their most beloved friends, nay, their only 
sons." What wonder is it then that the greater part 
of the religions of the barbarians should have at 
length accorded with the Phoenicians in this human 
immolation, Jinding it an easy transition, from sa- 
crifice to malefice, from piety to enormity , from the 
blood of victims to the murder of manl a thing not 
only savage and revolting in the act, but monstrous 
and horrible even in idea ! The Thessalians we find 
used annually to sacrifice a man to Peleus and 
Chiron ; so used the Scythians foreigners to Diana. 
As the Syrians used to slay a virgin annually in 
honor of Pallas, so used the Arabians a boy. The 
Curetes, like the Phoenicians, used to sacrifice some 
of their children to Saturn ; the Lacedemonians, a 
man to Saturn ; the Chians, another to Bacchus ; 
the Salaminians, another to Diomed ; and the Rho- 
dians, another to Saturn ;* whilst the Phrigians, in 



* Saturn was the deity whom the Carthagenians principally 
worshipped ; and he was the same with what is called Moloch 
in Scripture. This idol was the deity to whom they offered up 
human sacrifices, and to this we owe the fable of Saturn's 
having devoured his own children. Princes and great men, 
under particular calamities, used to offer up their most beloved 

s 2 



260 

the heat of their superstitious zeal, used miserably 
to burn and sacrifice themselves to the great mother, 
Cibele. The Greeks, before setting out upon any 
military expedition, used to sacrifice a life, thereby 
making their devotion towards the gods to wreak its 
vengeance upon themselves. The Athenians, oppress- 
ed by a frightful famine on account of the assassination 
of Androgeos, consulted the oracle ; when they got for 
their reply, that they must send fourteen souls every 
year to Crete for sacrifice. The Italians themselves 
used to sacrifice every tenth man, or the tithe of 
their population, to Apollo and Juno. But I grow 
sick of the recital, and shall leave this unnatural and 
impious superstition to the merited lamentations of 
Lactantius and Tertullian.* 



children to this idol. Private persons imitated the conduct of 
their princes ; and thus, in time, the practice became general ; 
nay, to such a height did they carry their infatuation, that those 
who had no children of their own, purchased those of the poor, 
that they might not be deprived of the benefits of such a sacri- 
fice, which was to procure them the completion of their wishes. 
This horrid custom prevailed long among the Phanicians, the 
Tyrians, and the Carthagenians, and from them the Israelites 
borrowed it, although expressly contrary to the order of God. 

* The ancient idolaters of Peru offered not only the fruits of 
the earth and animals to these gods, but also their captives, like 
the rest of the Americans. We are assured, that they used to 
sacrifice their own children, whenever there was a scarcity of 
victims. These sacrifices were performed by cutting open the 
victims alive, and afterwards tearing out their hearts; they then 
smeared the idol, to whom they were sacrificing, with the blood 



261 

It was chiefly on account of these human sacrifices 
that Augustus Caesar interdicted to his subjects the 
introduction of the Druidical religion. Tiberius re- 
moved it from the city ; and Claudius abolished it 
in the Gauls themselves. Yet have we the lament- 
able truth to record, that this cruel rite was again 
revived and perpetuated, at a subsequent period, in 
Gaul and elsewhere, as Lampridius, Vopiscus, and 
Eusebius, but too mournfully testify.* 

Some Spaniards suppose that vestiges of the 
Druids of that Peninsula are still preserved, in the 
depraved names of Drada and Dradas, which are 
small towns belonging to the ancient Lusltania, 
which became afterwards the jurisdiction of the 



yet reeking, as was the custom of Mexico. Tiie priest burnt 
the victim's heart, after having viewed it in order to see whether 
the sacrifice would be agreeable to the idol. Some other idol- 
ators offered their own blood to their deities, which they drew 
from their arms and thighs, according as the sacrifice was more 
or less solemn ; and they even used, on extraordinary occasions, 
to let themselves blood at the tips of their nostrils, or between 
the eye-brows. We are however to observe, that these kinds 
of bleeding were not always an act of religious worship, but 
were often employed purely to prevent diseases. — Hurd, 

* No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant over 
mankind as that of the ancient Gauls and Britons ; and the 
Romans, after their conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile 
those nations to the laws and institutions of their masters, were 
at last obliged to abolish the Druidical system by penal statutes 
a violence which had never, in any other instance, been prac- 
tised by those tolerating conquerors." — Hume's EncjL I. 5. 



262 

Suevi, as it is now of the Lucani, in the district of 
Gallacia. They also suppose that Adrada and 
Adrades, the names of two towns belonging to tlie 
Vaccaei, allude to the same ; as also Adrados, the 
name of two villages in the country of the Astures, 
&c. &c * 



* Some traces of the Druidical religion remained in Gaul 
and Germany, till the time of the Emperor Constantine the 
Great ; but in that part of Britain, now called England, it was 
totally suppressed, in consequence of the following incident. In 
or about the year 62, the Romans having cruelly oppressed the 
Britons, who were at that time subject to them by conquest, 
the latter took up arras, and massacred many of their invaders. 
News of this having been sent to Rome, Seutonius, a gallant 
commander, was sent over to Britain, in order to subdue the 
insurgents, and the whole body of the Druids, calling in the aid of 
superstition, retired to the island of Mona, since called Angle- 
sey, in North Wales. To that island the Roman general pur- 
sued them ; and such were the hopes that the Druids had of 
success, that when the Romans made their appearance, they 
lighted up fires in their groves, in order to consume them. The 
Romans, however, put most of the Britons to the sword ; and 
having taken the Druids prisoners, burnt them alive on their 
altars, and cut down their consecrated groves. From that time 
we have but few accounts of the Druids in the southern parts of 
Britain, although there is the strongest reason to believe, that 
both in the western parts, and likewise in Ireland, their religion 
continued much longer. — Hard. 



263 



CHAP. XXIX. 



The Phoenicians initiated the Samothracians in the discipline of 
idols — They also introduced it into Ireland — Astaroth^ a 
Phoenician idol — Vestiges of its worship in Ireland and in 
Spain. 

Thus far have we seen all that is worthy pf being 
known respecting the ancient manners of the early 
inhabitants of Ireland. Now lest any one should 
imagine that I have been induced, from the mere 
circumstance of the derivation of these names, to 
infer the possession of this island, as well in length 
as in breadth, from coast to coast, at one time by 
the Phoenicians, I shall endeavour to construct my 
theory still more secure, by the idol worship which 
anciently prevailed amongst us, and which was the 
same as originally obtained amongst the Phoenicians, 
from whom, doubtless, we have adopted it. In sup- 
port of this I shall adduce, first, the authority of 
Artemidorus, who says that '' there is an island near 
Britain, in which sacrifices used to be offered to Ceres* 



* Prima Ceres ferro mortales vertere terrain, instituit. — Virg. 
Gcor. i. 7. 



264 

and to Proserpine, in the same manner as in Samo- 
thrace." " Nor is there any reason," adds Bochart, 
*^ that any one should think its inhabitants had the 
Greeks as their instructors at the time of Artemido- 
rus, who wrote in the reign of Ptolemy Latyrus ; 
the learned know well that no Greek ever landed in 
Britair^: it remains, therefore, that those same 
Phoenicians, from whom the Samothracians had 
learned the worship of the Cabiri, had initiated 
those also in the same discipline." In like manner, 
are we furnished with proofs — as well from other 
memorials as from certain terms used by the Irish 
people, which savor strongly of the idolatrous ritual 
— that they had instructed in the principles of their 
superstition not only the Irish, but the Spaniards too, 
and every other people amongst whom they could get 
footing as a colony. 

To begin with Astarte or Astaroth, the deity of 
the Phoenicians, and the groves dedicated tocher, 
we may observe the evidence of her having been 
worshipped in Ireland, in the name of that town 
in the county Donegal, by the river Erne, called 
Astroth, or, otherwise, Ashro ; in Ardsrath or Ard- 
stra, the name of a town by the river Deirg, in the 
county Antrim, now called Bathlure ; in Aterit, the 
name of an ancient district and borough in the 
county Galway, now called Athenry or Atenree. 

For x4shro is the Phoenician word, Ashra, a grove 
or shrubbery that is worshipped ; or a tree planted 



265 

in honor of some idol beside his shrine or altar ; for 
the Phoenicians, like the other idolators of the east, 
were wont to plant a tree by the temples or altars of 
their divinities, as a meeting-place for the congre- 
gation ; a custom which, perhaps, had its rise from 
the similar one universally observed by the easterns, 
of planting trees over the graves of their illustrious 
men or heroes.* A specimen of this custom we still see 
in the linden or elm trees planted over ancient ceme- 
tries. Spain, too, has to this day, in the district of 
Cantabria, a celebrated tree of this sort, which they 
call, de Garnica ; under the branches of which, from 
the earliest date, the people have been accustomed 
to celebrate their general elections. 

That the idolators used to worship a tree situated 
in the centre of a garden may be inferred from the 
sixty-seventh chapter, and seventeenth verse of Isaiah. 
Holy writ speaks in more places than one, of woods 
or groves consecrated to Baal, a superstition which 
the Lord prohibited to Israel, The people, however, 
forgetting the Lord their God, are said afterwards to 
have worshipped Baalim and Ashroth or Asheroth, 
that is his groves. Which observance the Greeks and 
Romans in after times adopted. The Galli Narbonen- 



* Super tumulum Iddo^ prophetae, qui sepultus est in urbe 
Phoenicum Dan juxta fontem duminis lor-Dan (fluvius Dan) 
abor magna botam (terebinthus) coUocata est. Ibidem tumula- 
tus est Sahuely Moysis ex Gerson nepos ; et super eo arbor 
magna Sagadian. V. Schindl, loc. laud. col. 378. 



266 

ses,who were called Massilii, that is, the inhabitants of 
Marseilles, used to adore their gods in woods; or in 
other words, used to consider as gods the trunks of 
their trees ; an usage from which the Scythians, the 
Persians, and the Lybians did not differ much, who 
at a time when they had neither likenesses nor 
images, began afterwards to worship idols in woods. 
Unquestionably Jupiter was called Endendros by the 
Rhodians, as was Bacchus by the Bcetians, from 
their being worshipped in groves, as this epithet 
signifies. Diana, too, was called Nemorensis, or 
presiding over groves, as she was also Arduenra, and 
the Albunean goddess, from a grove and forest of 
those respective names. Conformable to this is what 
we read of King Manasses, namely, that he laid 
down in the temple of the Lord, pesel hasherah, or 
ashrah, the idol of the grove. 

The first king who is recorded to have consecrated 
a grove under that name is Achab. What follows is in 
keeping with this, viz. "And they made themselves 
statues and groves in every high hill, and under every 
shady forest." But why under every leafy oak they 
burned fragrant incense to all their idols may be in- 
ferred from Hosea, iv. 13, where it is said they did 
so " because its shade is good." It will be enough for 
our purpose merely to hint that the oak to which the 
worship was offered, is understood by Salomon Jarchi 
as the word Asherah, which signifies an oak grove ; 
and that from it seems to be taken the sense of that 



267 

passage in Isaiah, Ivii. 5, " Ye comfort yourselves 
with your gods under every green tree ;" the Hebrew 
text has ehm, which the Septuagint and English 
versions render by idols. They, therefore, who 
understand by those scripture texts, not the real 
trees, but the idols consecrated by that name, bring 
forward in proof of this acceptation the lofty oak, 
which Maximus Tyrius assures us, had been a statue 
of the Celtic Jove. 

And, indeed, that Asharah means not a place 
planted mth trees, as Flavins Josephus supposes, 
but actually a deity, or rather a false god, may be 
concluded from the fact of King Manasses having 
placed an idol of that name, and that too of wood, 
in the temple of Jerusalem. Whence, perhaps, by 
the terms oak and grove, is intended a reproach 
upon their fictitious, fragile, and perishable divinities; 
as we find it to have been burned by King Josias, 
and ground to dust and then flung over the groves 
of the populace. In other places, also, the word 
Asherath or grove, is taken for the wooden image of 
Belus, which was consecrated above his altar. We 
likewise frequently meet with images dedicated to 
Astarte or Astaroth, called Asherim and Asheroth, or 
groves ; that, both, an attention may be enlisted by 
the allusion of the name, and a material so inade- 
quate to divinity find that merited reproach which 
the very sound must convey. All our conjectures 
about Ashros I wish to bo understood as equally 



268 

applicable to Easroe and Easruadh, being but inflec- 
tions of this word, and names of two towns in this 
country. 

With this accord the depraved names of Astrath, 
and of the village Ardsrath, that is the idol which 
was worshipped there, called Astaroth or Astareth, 
or Astrath, being an image of the Sidonians, respect- 
ing which the scripture says, '^that the people of 
Israel had forsaken the Lord and worshipped Baal 
and Astaroth ;" for these were the supreme, not to 
say the only deities of the Sidonians, by the former 
of which they understood the sun, by the other the 
moon or the earth.* Whence some heretics, by 
reason of its being common to all men to receive 
their vital heat from the sun and heaven, and their 
grosser matter from the terraqueous globe, over 
which, and more particularly over its watery compo- 
nent, the moon exercises dominion, have specially 
attributed this to Melchisedec,f whose father they 

* This idolatry was founded on a mistaken notion of grati- 
tude, which instead of ascending up to the Supreme Being, stopt 
short at the veil, which both covered and discovered him: — 
" Ah ! how basely men their honours use. 
And the rich gifts of bounteous heaven abuse : 
How better far to want immoderate store 
Of worldly wealth, and live serenely poor; 
To spend in peace and solitude our days. 
Than be seduc'd from sacred virtue's ways." 

MiidtclVs Jonah, 
t He appears to have been a real personage. He had pre- 
served in his family and among his subjects the worship of the 



269 

state to be Heracles, or the sun, and his mother 
Astharte, that is the moon or Tellus. Nor would 
they have done so, but that his parents were not 
known. 

We see, then, that the idol Astrath or Astharoth, 
was also called Astharte, of which Lucian of Samo- 
sata thus speaks : " Now there is another temple in 
Phoenicia which the Sidonians have, and by name 
Astharte as they themselves call it ; but I consider 
Astharte to be the moon." Whence Eusebius hands 
down from Philo, that Astharte had the head of a 
bull placed upon her own as the ensign of royalty ; that 
by his curved front he may imitate fire, and exhibit 
at the same time the appearance of the moon. Nor 
can we conceive any more appropriate symbol of the 
moon than an ox*s head, representing as it does by 
its horns the moon's curvature ; as the Egyptian Isis, 
— by which likewise was meant the moon — was in- 
vested by that people with a pair of horns. All which 
characteristics clearly accord with the Diana of the 
Greeks and Latins, whom Horace designates as 



true God, and the primitive patriarchal institutions; by these 
the father of every family w^as both king and priest. By Salem 
most judicious interpreters allow that Jerusalem is meant. From 
tlie use made of this part of the sacred history by David, (Psa. 
ex. 4,) and by St. Paul, (Heb. vii. 1—10,) we learn that there 
was something very mysterious, and at the same time typical, 
in the person, name, office^ residence, and government of this 
Canaanitish prince. 



270 



" mistress of the woods." Whence it is evident that 
Astharte is the moon or Diana ; groves having been 
consecrated to her, as Vossius and others have de- 
monstrated. From Astharte the septuagint has 
given the name of, Astarteion, to the temple of As- 
tharoth or Beth Astaroth; where the Palestines* 
deposited or consecrated the arms of Saul, whom 
they slew. You also meet Astartion in Flavius 
Josephus. 

There are those who maintain that Astaroth or 
Astharte was so called, from its images having been 
made in the form of a sheep, and considering Aster- 
oth to mean, flocks. Others suspect it was so named 
from the multitude of its victims. Others considered 
Astharte to be Venus, whom Procopius, of Gaza, 
asserts to have been worshipped by the Sidonians, 
and to have had groves planted in honor of her. 



* The appellation of Palestine, by which the whole land of 
Canaan appears to have been called in the days of Moses, is 
derived from the Philistines, a people who migrated from 
Egypt, and, having expelled the aboriginal inhabitants, settled 
on the borders of the Mediterranean ; where they became so 
considerable as to give their name to the whole country, 
though they in fact, possessed only a small part of it. The 
Philistines were for a long time the most formidable enemies 
of the children of Israel, but about the year of the world 3841, 
that is, before Christ 159, the illustrious Judas Maccabeus 
subdued their country ; and about sixty-five years afterwards 
Jannaeus burnt their city Gaza, and incorporated the remnant 
of the Philistines with such Jews as he placed in their country. 

Hartwell Home. 



271 

And here I may be allowed, in passing, to remark 
that Herodian has inconsiderately and ill-advisedly 
asserted, that the Phoenicians had no images of their 
deities ; what he and Strabo have also said of the 
ancient Persians, as Lucian has of the Egyptians. 
This has led some to conclude that the Gauls, too, 
and the Britons made no use of idols in their Druid- 
ical ceremonies: and hence that it was not to be 
wondered at that none were ever found in the ruins 
of their old temples throughout this island. But it 
is manifest from Holy writ, that the Phoenicians had 
Baal, and Astharoth, and Moloch, and other like- 
nesses of their deities, for idols. That the ancient 
Irish worshipped idols will appear equally evident 
from what Diodorus Siculus tells us of the '' Hyper- 
borean" island, "Where," he says, " peculiar worship 
is paid to Apollo, whom they worship every day with 
incessant singing of praises,* and in honor of whom 



* One would suppose that the most ancient sort of poetry 
consisted in praising the Deity ; for, if we conceive a being, 
created with all his faculties and senses, endued with speech 
and reason, to open his eyes in a most delightful plain, to view 
for the first time the serenity of the sky, the splendor of the 
sun, the verdure of the fields and woods, the glowing colours 
of the flowers, we can hardly believe it possible that he should 
refrain from bursting in an ecstacy of joy, and pouring his 
praises to the creator of those wonders, and the author of his 
happiness. This kind of poetry is used in all nations ; but, as 
it is the sublimest of all, when it is applied to its true object, so 
it has often been perverted to impious purposes by pagans and 



272 

there is there a magnificent grove and a splendid 
temple, of circular form."* And a comparison of the 
original, in its several descriptive points, will prove 
beyond the possibility of doubt, that by this island 
was meant our own green Ireland,^ as Dalton has 
before affirmed. But, more than abundant on this 



idolaters : every one knows that the dramatic poetry of the 
Europeans took its rise from the same spring, and was no more 
at first than a song in praise of Bacchus; so that the only 
species of poetical composition, (if we except the epic,) which 
can in any sense be called imitative, was deduced from a 
natural emotion of the mind, in which imitation could not be at 
all concerned. — Sir W. Jones. 

* These are the ** Round Towers," or, to speak correctly, 
our Budhist Temples, as I have proved in my ** Essay :" 

Divine 

And beauteous island ! thou hast been my sole 
And most magnificent temple, in the which 
I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs, 
Loving the God that made me ! 

Coleridge, 
f " Although," says Sir John Carr, " the Welsh have been 
for ages celebrated for the boldness and sweetness of their 
Music, yet it appears that they were much indebted to the 
superior musical talents of their neighbours, the Irish. The 
learned Selden asserts, that the Welsh music, for the most 
part, came out of Ireland with GrufFydh ap Conan, Prince of 
North Wales, who was cotemporary with King Stephen. '* I 
am delighted," adds the elegant author of Julia de Roubigni, 
** with those ancient national songs, because there is a simpli- 
city and an expression in them, which I can understand. 
Adepts in music are pleased with more intricate compositions, 
and they talk more of the pleasure, than they feel ; and others 
talk after them, without feeling at all. 



273 

head will be the testimony of St. Patrick,* whom we 
find continually and keenly reproving the adorers of 
the sun, whom he found before him in this country, — 
grieving from his soul that the Irish could, to that 
day, continue in the worship of ridiculous idols. 

As, therefore, the Iberes in Spain worshipped after 
the Phoenician fashion, the sun and moon, under the 
guise of Baal and Astharoth, so did the Irish embrace 
the same superstitions from the Ibero-Phoenicians, as 
well as the worship of those images that prevailed 
amongst them. Nor is it to be wondered at, if, in the 
old walls of those temples — which Ireland still pre- 
serves, despite the ravages of time — there are no such 
images as those to be met with, as I am perfectly as- 
sured that St. Patrick and the other preachers of the 
gospel, took particular care to overthrow, — to extir- 
pate, and, like Josias, to burn, — every vestige of an idol 
that came in their way or could possibly be met with. 
This I can more immediately testify with respect to 
Spain, w^here no appearance of the like is to be found, 
by digging beneath the rubbish of old castles or towns ; 



* S. Eleraiius sapiens in Vit S. Patricii u. LIU. narrat 
beatum hunc episcopum, in loco ubi est hodie Ecdesia S. Pa- 
tricii, quae Scotice Dof/mac/i Padruic vocatur, iuvenisse idohim 
Slecht (vel in campo Sfecht) auro et argento ornatuni ; et 12 si- 
mulachra aerea hinc et inde erga idobim posita. " Rex aiitem, 
addit et omnis populus hoc idohiui adorabant, in quo daemon 
pessimus latitabat." — CoUjan. 



274 

though it is a well known fact that idolatry flourished 
there, in allits varieties, of Phoenician, Celtic, Grecian, 
and Roman forms. I will instance the town of 
Gades, in which Philostratus bears record there were 
deities worshipped that were scarcely elsewhere 
known or heard of. CElian tells us that it had one 
altar sacred to the year, and another to the month, in 
honor of time, of those respective durations. There, 
too, poverty had an altar, as well as art and old 
age; and death also, which, as Philostratus tells us, 
they used to celebrate with songs of joy ; unless, 
perhaps, by death we are to understand, Pluto ; whom 
it is well known^ from Sanchoniathon, that the Phoe- 
nicians used to call Muth, which means death. But 
to return from this digression. 

Nor ought we to wonder that the Phoenicians 
should have named those towns in Ireland after 
their idol Astharoth, or Astharte, and the groves 
consecrated thereto ; for. there was a city also of 
the name in Phoenicia, the royal residence of Og 
king of Basan, in which the modern Jews will have 
it, that the house of Job was situated. We have, 
however already proved, and without the possi- 
bility of doubt, from the ancient geography of 
Spain, that several of its towns and villages, as well 
as also its distinguished cities, have been named 
from the groves, or mountains, or caves wherein 
they used to offer their devotions ; as well as from the 
idols themselves to whom they used to offer them. 



275 

To these I add the example of the name Astarte,* 
or Astharoth, at present under discussion : for it is 
to me unquestionable, that, from the worship of this 
idol, arose the names of the Spanish villages of As- 
trar, amongst the ancient Suevi, in the department 
of Compostella ; Asteire, in the Lucanian territory ; 
Astariz, in the Ariensian tract ; with the town of 
Astrain, and the deserted and almost ruinated little 
village of Astrea amongst the Cantabrians. Nor 
should I think those to be far astray, who — merely 
expunging the initial letter, as is usual in other geo- 
graphical names of Spain — conceive that, from the 
idol Asthartes, originated the name of Tartessus,f the 
most ancient city which the Phoenicians built near 
Calpe and the pillars of Hercules, This I beg leave 
to say with all deference to the authority of the 
poets of Spain, who, with Ovid at their head, insist 
that Tartessus is the extreme section of the west, and 
who think it so called from the river Tartessus, whose 
source is in the silver mountain of Oros-pedda, which 
abounds in mines of that metal ; or whose sides, say 
they, being overlaid with tin, exhibit the appearance 
of so much silver. 



* Astore, that word of bland endearment and familiar con- 
verse amongst the native Irish, implying, my refuUjent dellyht, 
is an evident emanation from this Astarte or Lunar Goddess. 

t Sic ^ Emerita, expuncta priore syllabi, dicimus Mcrida : 
k Cocsarauyust&y Zaragoza: a Vico Ausonce, Vic. Innumera 
occurrunt exempla. 

T 2 



276 



CHAP. XXX. 



Vestiges both in Ireland and Spain of the worship of Moloch, 
the idol of the Phoenicians — Various names thereof — Des- 
cription of it — The name of God attributed to the deities of 
the Gentiles — The Syrians used to sacrifice their sons and 
daughters to Moloch — What meant by bearing over across 
the fire — The horrible practice, of burning alive, spread from 
Syria into other nations. 

Of Moloch too, the PhcEnician deity, as there 
would seem to be some traces of his worship still 
remaining amongst the Spaniards, evidenced in the 
name of Malaca, a maritime town in the province of 
Boetica; and Malagon, or Malgon, a town of the 
Artabri, so here would the name of Ard-Mulchan, a 
town in the barony of Duleek, county Meath, seem 
to prove itsexistence amongst the ancient Irish ; as 
would also another town of the same name in the ba- 
rony of Skreen ; Macroon, a town in the barony 
of Bantry, county Cork ; Meelick, a town in the ba- 
rony of Bunratty, county Clare ; Melick, a small town 
in the barony of Gallen, county Mayo ; Melches- 
town, a village in the barony of Moygeesh, county 



277 

Westmeath ; Melcombe, a town in the barony of 
Canagh, county Mayo ; Malco, a lake in the county 
Mayo ; and Melogh, a river^ in the county Down, with 
numberless others ; all of which, until undeceived by 
some other more convincing authority, I shall con- 
tinue to derive from various inflexions of the word 
Moloch, which the Phoenicians themselves used some- 
times to pronounce, Molech ; and, with the initial 
letter repeated at the end, Milcom, and in the Sy- 
rian vulgate, Malcum. But the place wherein this 
idol's sacrifices used to be performed, was called 
Malken, or Malaken. 

Molock, or Milcom was expressly the deity of the 
Ammonites, amongst whom he had a temple in the 
city of Gebal, and in it an image of stone, overlaid 
with gold, and seated upon a throne ; on either side 
of him were two female images, also seated, and in 
front an altar, whereon the sacrifices and incense 
used to be offered up. But the Assyrians, who had 
been carried away into Samaria, had other idols of 
Moloch, which they called Adra-Melech and Ana- 
Melech, that is, the brave and magnificent Moloch ; 
for adir, which is one of the attributes of the deity, 
signifies great, powerful, excellent, or magnificent. 
And no wonder, for as the Chaldee paraphrast, com- 
monly known under the disguise of Jonathan, ob- 
serves, '' the Gentiles called their idols after the name 
of the Lord Jehovah." Which is the opinion of several 
of the Hebrews " conceiving," as St. Jerome says. 



278 

" that their idols were made in the name of the 
Lord, and after his likeness. Let the learned judge^ 
whether or not, the town of Ard Mulchan in this 
island, had not been so called from the name of the 
idol Adra Malcum> 

Moloch was represented with the face of a calf, 
having his hands stretched out ready to receive any- 
thing offered by the bystanders ; it was a concave 
image, with seven distinct compartments ; one they 
used to open for offering flour, another for turtles, 
the third for a sheep, the fourth for a ram, the fifth 
for a calf, the sixth for an ox, but whoever affected 
to be so exceedingly religious as to sacrifice a son for 
him, as a mark of special approbation, they would 
open the seventh.* Under the symbol of this idol the 



* The Rabbins say it was made of brass, the body resembling 
that of a man, and the head that of a calf, with a royal diadem, 
and the arms extended. They add, that when children were 
to be offered to him, they heated the statue, and put the mise- 
rable victim between his arms, where it was soon consumed by 
the violence of the flame. From the whole of this we may 
learn, that human sacrifices were the most acceptable at the 
altars of Moloch ; which, undoubtedly, made our great poet 
Milton rank him among the infernal deities, as one of the fallen 
angels ; and as one who was to be a curse to the idolatrous 
world, 

" First Moloch, horrid kiDg, besmeared with blood 

Of human sacrifices, and parents' tears ; 

Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, } 

Their children's cries unheard, that passed thro' fire 

To his grim idol," 



279 

Phoenicians used to worship the sun and Saturn, 
namely, that large star in the firmament which they 
used to call Melee, king of all the rest. 

They who think Saturn to have been the Moloch 
of the Phoenicians, seem to gain countenance in the 
idea from the practice of sacrificing children to Mo- 
loch ; which they, in common with the Carthaginians 
observed ; whilst we know from the Greek and Latin 
writers that victims used also to be sacrificed to 
Saturn. 

But the scriptures inform us, in divers places, that 
the Syrians had unnaturally burned their own seed, 
their own sons and daughters, in honor of this deity. 
This abominable sacrifice of the idol, then, consisted 
in dragging children through the fire, and by the 
hands of their parents in honor of him. 

That this was a Phoenician custom is evident from 
Philastrius, and Porphyry, and Eusebius too, as I 
have already shewn when treating on the subject of 
the Druids. It obtained particularly in the land of 
Canaan and the Mediterranean Syria, in which Phoe- 
nicia was comprehended ; and the author of the book 
of wisdom, as well as Jeremy and Ezekiel, seem 
severally to allude to the prevalence of the practice 
in Syria of immolating their children. Whence the 
valley of Gia, or of the sons of Hinnon, in the out- 
lets of the city of Jerusalem, obtained its name from 
the wailings or lamentations of boys whilst burning 
before the idols. 



280 

It appears too, from the testimony of the ancientf^y 
that these impious rites had travelled from Syria into 
Africa and Spain ; Pliny informs us, that the Her- 
cules of the Carthaginians, like Moloch, was usually 
appeased by human sacrifices ; whence to me it is clear 
as demonstration that human victims had been im- 
molated to Hercules in the celebrated temple of Ga- 
des, built by the Phoenicians ; and where, as Diodorus 
Siculus mentions, splendid sacrifices were wont to he 
solemnised after the Phoenician form ; for the Phoe- 
nicians, who — w^e are assured by St. Athanasius, Cyril, 
Eusebius, Minutius Felix, and others, were wont to 
sacrifice their sons and daughters to their deities — 
made it an invariable rule to carry with them their 
peculiar rites with the worship of their idols to their 
several colonies. Of the Carthaginians, who were a 
colony of the Syrians, Ennius says, they practised 
" that custom of sacrificing their little children to 
the Gods." Fescenius Festus relates that the Car- 
thaginians were wont to immolate human victims to 
Saturn.* They who had no children, used to buy them 
from the poor to offer them in sacrifice, as Plutarch 
informs us. 



* Diodorus relates an instance of this more than savage bar- 
barity, which is sufficient to fill any mind with horror. He 
tells us, that when Agathocles was going to besiege Carthage, 
the people, seeing the extremity to which they were reduced, 
imputed all their misfortunes to the anger of their god Saturn, 
because that, instead of oft'ering up to him children nobly b«rn. 



281 

I should wish — in my zeal for the fair character of 
Ireland, — I could have access to proofs, whereby to 
shew that its early inhabitants, — on accepting from 
the Phoenicians, like the Spaniards, the worship of 
Moloch, Astarte, and Baal, as also of Hercules, — had 
nobly rejected, — at least one, the most unhallowed, 
the most unnatural feature in their superstition, — 
human immolation. In the absence of such proofs, 
and bound by the responsibility of a faithful histo- 
rian, I am painfully obliged to refer my readers to 
the authority of Ledwich, who, in the footsteps of 
Keating, Baxter, Jurieu, and Vallancey, asserts that 
on the festivals of Ops, or Astarte, and Baal, when the 
heads of the people were assembled together on the 
eve of the first day of November,* whatever criminals 
had been convicted by the Druids on Mount Usneach, 
on the first day of May preceding, and sentenced to 



he had been fraudently put off with the children of slaves and 
foreigners. That a sufficient atonement should be made for this 
crime, — as the infatuated people considered it,— two hundred 
children of the best families in Carthage were sacrificed ; and 
no less than three hundred of the citizens voluntarily sacrificed 
themselves, that is, they went into the fire without compulsion. 
* A prince, on Saman's day, (1st of November,) should 
light his lamps and welcome his guests with clapping of hands; 
procure comfortable seats ; the cup-bearers should be respect- 
able, and active in distribution of meat and drink; let there be 
moderation of music ; short stories ; a welcoming countenance ; 
failte for the learned ; pleasant conversations, <fec. These are 
the duties of the prince, and the arrangement of the banquetting 
house." — Cormac. 



282 

death, they were now sacrificed by way of expiation 
to Baal, and burned for that purpose between two 
fires. To these I should add Seward's* remarks in 
his Irish Topography, under the article Usneach. 
Walker too, after declaring that the Hebrews, in 
common with the Turks, and the Druids of the British 
isles, made use of cymbals to drown the shrieks of the 
human victims offered at their sacrifices, adds — in a 
tone of that inevitable horror which the very thought 
must suggest, — '' I shudder and feel my pen tremble 
with a religious dread, in the execution of its task, 
when necessitated to record, that this rite was ob- 
served by the Irish Druids, and for the very same 
purpose/*f — or words to this effect. 

* His words are as follow. — '* Usneach, a mountain, ... on 
which fires were kindled by the Druids on 1st Mayv in honor 
of Beal, or the Sun. This was the grand Bealtinne of the 
northern parts of Leinster, where the states assembled and held 
judgment on all criminals worthy of death, and such as were 
found guilty were burnt between two fires of Beal : children 
and cattle also were purified on this day by passing them 
between two fires." 

t The best way to point out false religion, is to display it in 
its native colours; and men, by seeing unaccountable absurdi- 
ties presented to them as objects worthy of their notice or regard, 
will become in love with the truth. Truth carries conviction 
along with it, and happy must that man be, who seeks wisdom. 
He who sincerely enquires after " truth," has great reason to 
hope, that God will direct him to it, and convince him of its 
excellency above every other thing in this world. The Tuatha 
Danaans, or Iranian colony, the real authors of Ireland's an- 
cient grandeur, and the erectors of the " Round Towers,^' never 



283 



CHAP. XXXI. 



Tyrian Hercules worshipped in Ireland — Transferred from the 
Phcenicians to their colonies — The celebrated temple of 
Hercules at Gades — His sacred rites performed in the 
Phoenician fashion — The altars of Hercules — The Alps — 
Vestiges of this superstition in the geography of Spain — 
Whether the worship of Iphis had obtained amongst the Irish 
— Vossius's opinion about Iphis. 

That the Tyrian Hercules, too, who was worship- 
ped in the celebrated temple of Gades, which had 
been built by the Phoenicians, has had sacrifices and 
oblations, with all corresponding ceremonies, offered 
to him in the British isles, may be inferred from a 
very ancient altar, found a few years since, by Dr. 
Todd, in a church-yard in the town of Corbridge, 
in Northumberland, bearing an inscription deeply 
cut in the old Greek characters, and purporting to 
be in honor of him. Doctors Hunter and Todd have 



practised those horrid rites. They were indulged in only by the 
Fir Bolgs, who were Celts, and who contrived the cromleachs 
for the occasion. The Scythian Druids would fain re-establish 
the usage, until repressed by the humanising precepts of the 
enlightened Danaaas. So they immolated only criminals. 



284 

both given a very accurate description of it. Cooke, 
who has sketched a drawing of it, thinks it still more 
ancient than Todd, and that it was erected — not by 
the Phoenicians, who unquestionably, he says, would 
have inscribed those characters in their own language, 
and not the Greek — but by the lonians, natives of Asia, 
sons of Javan, otherwise called. Ion, and the founders 
of the great city of Phocea — furthermore distinguish- 
ed by their expertness as seamen, and by being the 
first amongst the Greeks, as Herodotus testifies, who 
undertook expeditions over the vasty deep. 

I incline more, however, to the opinion of Todd, 
who endeavours to prove from this altar, that the 
Phoenicians made use of the letters of the Greek 
alphabet after their arrival in Greece, as the Cartha- 
ginians did those of the Latin language, which they 
had borrowed from the Romans. This latter cir- 
cumstance Aurelius Victor appears to allude to, 
when, speaking of Septimius Severus, he says, '' he 
was versed in all the literature of the Latins, and 
spoke the Punic language with ease ; the more so, no 
doubt, as being born in Leptis, in the province of 
Africa." Which custom we may conclude had 
flourished amongst the Carthaginians in the time of 
Plautus,* from a Carthaginian fragment inserted in 



* Valiancy, a name never to be mentioned with disrespect, 
encountered much ridicule, in consequence of his having traced 
Irish in the Carthaginian's speech, in a play of Plautus. He 



285 

his Pasnulus, and written in Roman characters. Seve- 
ral inscriptions found in Africa, relating to the epoch 
of the Carthaginians, and all written in Roman cha- 
racters, give strength to this conjecture. 

Dr. Todd has rendered the abovementioned in- 
scription thus in Latin : " Herculi Tyrio Divina Dona 
Archi-sacerdotalia," — that is. Divine offerings to be 
presented to the Tyrian Hercules, by the hands of 
the high priest. On either side were engraved the 
heads of bulls, crowned with garlands, with the sacri- 
ficing instruments,* as represented in the opposite 
plate. 

This learned gentleman still further conjectures, 
that Erkelens in Gonderland, means the camp of Her- 
cules ; and Hartland Pointf in Cornwall, the promon- 



was quite correct in doing so ; and so was Bochart, when he 
discovered Hebrew, in the same speech. The reason is obvious; 
the Irish, Carthaginian, and the Hebrew, can all be traced to 
the Assyrian. This fact also offers a true solution of the dis- 
pute about the Basque, or language of Biscay ; one contends 
that it is Celtic, another that it is an African tongue ; and both 
are right— it is the language of the Iberi, and Mauri, who 
peopled Spain, and which is also derived from the Syriac, 
The resemblance, therefore, between the Irish and the Basque, 
offers no support to the imaginary colonization of Milesius. — 

Whitty. 

* An Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language, being 
a collation of the Irish with the Punic Language. Dublin, 
1772. Preface, p. V. seq. 

t Hartland Point, on the coast of Cornwall, in Britain, 
called in Camden's time, Harty Point, is evidently a cor- 



286 

tory of Hercules, and that from the words, Herculis 
castra, which is the Latin for, the camp of Hercules, 
was made the name, Hercul-ceaster, of the Saxons, 
which became afterwards abridged to Colchester. 
And Cook is convinced that the name of the town of 
Hartlepole on the Durham coast, is a manifest de- 
pravation of the word Heracleopolis. 

To me, too, it appears exceedingly probable that 
the great western promontory of Airchil, with the 
islands of the same name, were the promontory of 
Hercules, as denominated by the Phoenicians ; and 
whether the town of, Errigall, in each of the two 
counties of Monaghan and Londonderry, may not 
also be some vestige of Hercules' name, I leave to 
the decision of more competent judges. 

The worship of this deity, it is certain that the Irish, 
as well as the Spaniards, had borrowed from the 
Phoenicians ; for they alone had erected temples and 
altars to the Tyrian Hercules as their national hero; 
it being under his conduct, — w^hom some describe 
as contemporary with Moses, — that the Phoenician 
tribes had sailed to Gades. Whence, after his death, 
they built a temple at this place in honor of him, 
which was deemed illustrious for its religion, its 
antiquity, and its w^ealth ; and if at a loss to know 



ruption from its original name, Herculis promontorium, which 
it obtained from the celebrated navigator, the Tyrian Hercules, 
known in our annals by the designation of Phenius. 



287 

why it was particularly sacred, Pomponius Mela ex- 
plains : '' because that it contained Hercules's bones." 
There were no statues in this temple, according to 
Philostratus, but only two brazen altars without an 
image. We have a verse of Silius Italicus to the 
same effect, which may be thus translated : — 

" In it were seen no sacred eflSgies, 
Nor well-known likeness of their deities;" 

conformably, as would appear, to the worship in 
which Hercules had instructed them. Bochart, how- 
ever, thinks that it was from the Jews the Phoenicians 
had adopted the practice of not worshipping images 
in this temple ; or, perhaps, from the patriarchal re- 
ligion, which did not recognise images. For CorneHus 
Tacitus declares, that the Hebrews thought it im- 
pious in any one to represent the deity by any statue 
or likeness, and consequently ridiculed the Assyrians, 
as Macrobius asserts, for their habitual worship of 
the sun and moon. Plutarch tells us, that Lycurgus*s 
doctrine corresponded in this particular with the 
Hebrews ; and though the Scythians, the Persians, 
and the Lybians, not only differed, but were directly 
opposed to one another in their respective creeds, 
in one point, however, they harmonised completely, 
and that was — the invisibility of the godhead. The 
Romans, likewise, some time subsequent, and more 
especially in the reign of Numa Pompilius, adhering 
to the authority of Moses, Pythagoras, Socrates, and 



288 

Lycurgiis, continued to adore their gods without 
statues for a period of upwards of one hundred and 
seventy years. The ancient Germans did the same, 
as appears from the testimony of CorneUus Tacitus. 
But Hercules might have learned this system of 
religion in Arabia^ whence some antiquarians suppose 
that he was descended. For the Arabian* idols con- 
sisted, in a great measure, of huge rough stones, 
w^hich the posterity of Ismael had taught them to 
worship, and upon which they used to pour oil and 
wine, in imitation of Jacob, who poured oil upon the 
stone which served him as a pillow at the time of his 
vision. f Afterwards, however, they practised their 

* The Arabians were the descendants of Ishmael, the son of 
Abraham, by his concubine Hagar ; and they are, in some re- 
spects, even to this day, the most remarkable people in the 
world. The angel told Hagar that her son should be a wild 
man, and the Arabians remain uncivilized even to this hour. 
His hand was to be against every man, and every man's hand 
against him ; and so it is even now, for the Arabians live by 
plundering, not only such as travel from this part of the world, 
but even the Turks themselves, who pretend to be their masters. 
He was to live in the midst of his brethren ; and it is very re- 
markable, that the Arabians were never yet conquered. In vain 
did the great monarchs of the east attempt to subdue them, 
they still remain what they were three thousand years ago. 

t Eastern travellers, in modern times, have been known to 
do the same; the night air is not generally injurious in the East 
as it is with us. We are not to suppose that Jacob laid his 
bare head on the bare stone; a cap or turban probably guarded 
the one, and a portion of his long garments or perhaps a wallet, 
formed a covering for the other. 



289 

adorations upon those very stones, which it is very 
probable that the Phoenicians did also originally ; 
although, in process of time, before the people of 
Israel entered into the land of Canaan, they betook 
themselves to the worship of graven images. Where- 
fore the Lord had commanded his people, before ever 
they arrived at the promised land, to overturn their 
altars, demolish their statues, and cut down their 
groves. 

Strabo relates in what spot of the island of Gades, 
and on what occasion, the Phoenicians had erected 
that temple, as advised by the oracle. Appian and 
Arrian, both, assert that Hercules was worshipped 
therein, after the Phoenician manner, as we have 
said, with religious solemnities and magnificent 
sacrifices ; whilst we have loads of monuments as 
well in Asia as in Europe, to prove that the custom 
was thence transferred, and by the same people, to 
their different colonies, where they erected altars 
and shrines for its celebration. Of this number, 
it may suffice to remind the reader, only, of the 
altars erected on the Alps, of which Petronius says, 
'' On the aerial Alps, — where lofty cliffs ascend under 
a Grecian name, and suffer themselves to be sur- 
mounted, — lies a spot consecrated to the Herculean 
altars." 

From Hercules, its founder, did the ancients give 
the name of Heraclea to the Phoenician city Seta- 
bim, in the province of the Edetani, in Spain; as 
also to another Phoenician city in Boetica, at the 

u 



290 

foot of mount Calpe. For as in Greek, Heracleia — 
with an acute accent over its penultimate — means, in 
the general, anything belonging to Hercules, so the 
same word, with a circumflex — thus, Heracleia — over 
the same syllable, means, sacred rites or sacrifices de- 
dicated to Hercules ; and in either sense are to be 
found several cities of this name, in various parts of 
the East. From Hercules, too, it is probable that 
the Phoenician settlers in Spain, gave the name of 
Eriguela, as it is now called with some slight varia- 
tion from the original, to a village of the Artabri ; 
as, also, to Arcalis and Argolell, villages of the Iler- 
getes ; Arcal and Argalo, towns of the Suevi, near 
Compostella ; Arquillo, amongst the Numantines ; 
Argull, Arcallana, and Arguiello, amongst the As- 
tures. Wherefore, I should hope it will not seem 
over-absurd if I should trace, in this country also, 
some vestiges of the name Hercules — in that of 
Arklow, a town in the county Wicklow% near the 
vale of Ovoca, where are to be seen, at this day, the 
remains of an ancient camp ; and in Errigol-Keeroge, 
a little town in the barony of Clogher, county Tyrone : 
for as Keeroge would seem derived from the Phoeni- 
cian, Kerag, a census or cess ; or Kerac, a citadel or 
fortress, we may easily understand by the name of 
this town, either '* the fortress of Hercules," or tri- 
butary to the worship of Hercules.* 

* In every stage of society men naturally love the marvellous ; 
but in the early stages, a certain portion of it is necessary to 



291 

I should wish to give a whet to tlie investigating 
talent of the learned sons of Ireland, to ascertain 
whether IfFa and OfFa, the name of a barony in the 
county Tipperary, province of Munster, may not be 
a vestige of the v/orship of Iphis, that we may be 
able thence to infer whether or not the Phoenicians 
had imported it among us. For some Spaniards are 
very positive, that from Iphis, was given the name of 
Iphae, to a rock of a conical form, and miraculous 
elevation, without the slightest support on either 
side, lying on the Mediterranean coast, between 
Alona and Dianium. Although others derive it from 
the Phoenician word Ipha, handsome ; and others, 
again, from the Celtic If-ach, meaning standing alone, 
or unsupported. As to Iphis itself, some Syriac 



make any narration suflScienliy interesting- to attract attention, 
or obtain an audience : whence the actions of gods are inter- 
mixed with those of men in the earliest traditions or histories 
of all nations ; and poetical fable occupied the place of his- 
torical truth in their accounts of the transactions of war and 
policy, as well as in those of the revolutions of nature and 
origin of things. Each had produced some renowned warriors, 
whose mighty achievements had been assisted by the favor, or 
obstructed by the anger, of the gods ; and each had some 
popular tales concerning the means, by which those gods had 
constructed the universe, and the principles, upon which they 
continued to govern it: vvhence the Greeks and Romans found 
a Hercules in every country which they visited, as well as in 
their own ; and the adventures of some such hero supply liie 
first materials for history, as a cosmogony or theogony exhibits 
the first system of philosophy, in every nation. 

u 2 



292 

antiquarians suppose it to be a corrupted name from 
Jepthis, that is, the daughter of Jephtha, and so 
called after him ; from the union of which name with, 
anassa, which, in the Greek, means, queen, was made 
up the name of Iphianassa ; as from its union with 
genia, which signifies descended from, arose Iphige- 
nia. Wherefore, also, the daughter of Jephtha had 
a place amongst the deities of the Phoenicians, having 
divine honors paid to her by the inhabitants of Sa- 
maria, who celebrated an annual festival in her 
honour — as we learn from Epiphanius — -the origin of 
which we will see accounted for in the book of 
Judges. 

From the story of Jephthah, who devoted his only 
daughter in fulfilment of his vow to God, Homer 
took occasion in his fable of Agamemnon to make 
him sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, with all suit- 
able solemnities. Memnon, too, who had been slain 
by Achilles, after he had come an auxiliary to Priam 
in the Trojan war, is a farther instance, having been 
wept* for, after his death, and worshipped by the As- 
syrians as a distinguished scion of Aurora — as Oppi- 
an relates — with a temple, also, built in Egypt, to 

* Sunt lachrymae rerum et mentem mortalia a tangunt. — This 
reminds me of the philosophic tears of Xerxes, at the contem- 
plated mortality of his innumerable army ; and as 1 happen to 
light upon an unpublished poem — written by a young officer of 
the artillery corps, merely as a school exercise during his pre- 
paratory education — I feel happy at the opportunity of inserting 



293 

his honour by the inhabitants of Thebes. And here 
I cannot avoid reflecting with Vossius on the great 



an extract from it here, as ^foretaste of talents which I have 
reason to appreciate, and which T doubt not will shine out, 
some day, an honour to their possessor, and a benefit to his 
country. 

'* Unnumbered plumes are waving o'er the plain. 

The gentle zephyrs wave them back again : 

So golden corn that ripens in the sun, 

Stoops, gently stoops, the zephyrs' force to shun : 

Wave after wave in soft succession roll. 

Cheer the glad eye, and sooth the musing soul. 

The monarch saw, and high in fortune's gale 

Pride, hope, ambition, in their turn prevail: 

And as he saw his countless hosts below 

With her bright garland victory crowns his brow 

He looks again, but other feelings rise. 

Rush on his heart, and sorrow dims his eyes ; 

He thinks, he feels — and with averted head 

Soils the proud purple with the tears he shed. 

Why weeps the king ? — 'Tis nature at this hour 

Claims her full force, and proves her rightful power : 

By her subdued as by some magic spell. 

In fancy's ear he hears the funeral knell. 

Knell of those myriads whose bright banners stream. 

While martial music aids the living dream. 

Whose plumes around them cast a moving shade. 

Their souls all fire, their limbs of iron made. 

That fire shall die : those plumes shall cease to wave : 

Those swords and spears shall rust within the grave ; 

Where music floats around, shall silence reign. 

And prostrate banners strew the desert plain. 

Ere one short century shall near be run, 

To tell the dreadful tale shall live not one: 



294 

similarity existing between the Phoenician and the 
Egyptian sacrificial forms ; and on the extreme 
probability^ that the fleet which first landed in that 
colony in Spain, consisted not only of Phoenicians 
but of Egyptians also ; so that both countries may 
severally lay claim to the honour of the enterprise. 
I may be allowed just to hint, that it was, probably, 
from this very cause, that Hercules was indiflerently 
called the " Tyrian " or the " Egyptian." 



Expunged each name — the mighty and the mean, 
From being's page, as though they ne'er had been : 
Thus fade the flowers in Tempe's lovely vale ; 
Thus vanish clouds before the driving gale : 
Thus Time, omnipotent, sweeps all away — 
Grandeur's proud blaze, and pleasures of the gay. 

Stanley Hornby. 



295 



CHAP. XXXII. 



The Cabiri, divinities of the Phoenicians — Their worship in 
Ireland^'Etymology of the name — Tlie Coryhantes sacri- 
ficing priests of the Cabiri — Whence so called— Vestiges of 
them in the Geography as well of Ireland as of Spain. 

From the Cabiri, Seward thinks is derived, Cab- 
ragh, or Cabaragh, the name of a very ancient Irish 
town situated formerly near Dublin Castle, but now 
so in corporated with this Metropolis of the kingdom, 
that its very limits cannot be pointed out. The name 
Cabiri itself, he conceives consonant with the Irish 
word Cabhar, a prop or buttress ; or rather, I take it, 
with Cabhaire, one who props, a supporter. These 
deities, he says, the Corybantes invoked, who were 
the sacrificing priests of Ireland as they were of the 
Greeks too, on sudden and unexpected emergencies. 
Whence he supposes it likely, that the above men- 
tioned term of Cabaragh was so called as containing 
within it, or as being itself a seminary of, the Cory- 
bantes. — From the same source would he derive the 
name of the district of Cabragh, or Cabra, near 



296 

Ratlifriland, in the county Down ; to which we may 
add Cabra-castle, near Kills, in the county Meath. 
The Spanish towns of Cabeiro and Cabeiros amongst 
the Suevi, in the canton of Toledo, savor strongly of 
the same superstition ; which would rather seem de- 
rived from Cabirae, or Cabiria, the sacred rites of the 
Cabiri ; just as the district of Asia Minor, where 
they were worshipped, was called after them Cabira. 
Pausanias, too^ assures us that a district of Perga- 
mus was called by the name of Cabiris. 

Some of the ancients have supposed that the 
name of the Cabiri was borrowed from that of a 
mountain in Phrygia, called Cabirus, where they 
were w'orshipped with religious solemnities. But 
the reverse is more likely to have been the fact, and 
that the mountain was so called after them. They 
were themselves ancient divinities, belonging to the 
Phoenicians^ which they designated as, Cabirin, that 
is, great or potent, from the singular, Cabir, which, 
by the addition of, a, and the expunction of, c — which 
to them is only an adverb of similitude — becomes 
abir, that is, strong, or preeminent in fortitude. This 
word — originally, truly applied to God — the Syrians 
transferred to Ceres, Pluto, and Proserpine — by some 
called Axieros, Axicersus, and Axicersa — whose father 
too they state to have been Vulcan. Therefore it was, 
perhaps, that in some coins, these deities were re- 
presented under the appearance of a man holding in 
his right Jiand a mallet, and in his left an anvil. 



297 

Some would have them to be Jupiter, Bacchus, and 
Ceres ; others, Osiris, Orus, and Isis.* JuHus Fir- 
micus, in his " Errors of profane religions" says,, that 
the Cabiri were three brothers, the eldest of whom 
having been slain by the two others, was enrolled 
amongst the Gods, and worshipped by the Thessa- 
lonians. But this I look upon as foreign from the 
truth, and merely a fiction of the poets. For the 
worship of the Cabiri had its origin in Phoenicia, 
whence it passed over to the islands of the JEgean 
sea, and more especially to Samothrace and the 
Imbri, where their religion was flourishingly esta- 
blished, until, at length, it made way to Athens and 



* These were the general gods of Egypt, and such as were 
worshipped by the king, and his courtiers; for almost every 
district had its particular deity ; Some worshipped dogs; others 
oxen ; some hawks ; some owls ; some crocodiles ; some cats ; 
and others ibis, a sort of an Egyptian stork. The worship of 
these animals was confined to certain places ; and it often 
happened, that those who adored the crocodile, were ridiculed 
by such as paid divine honours to the cat. To support the 
honor of their different idols, bloody wars often took place ; 
and whole provinces were depopulated to decide the question 
— whether a crocodile or a cat was a god ? 

It does not. however, appear that these people were idolators, 
in the strict sense of the word, although it is more than pro- 
bable, that, in many instances, they deviated from the worship 
of the true god, according to its original purity. Pharaoh, the 
king of Egypt, calls the God of Abraham, Jehovah and 
r^LOHlM, both of which are the highest titles that can be as- 
cribed to the Divine Bein;:, because (hoy include all his incon- 
ceivable attributes. 



298 

the other cities of Greece, with Spain and all the 
other colonies which the Phoenicians had planted. 
There are those^ too, who add a third to their num- 
ber, namely, Kadmus, or Kasmilus, or Kadmilus, 
whom many suppose to have been the same as Her- 
mes, or Mercury ; for by Varro's testimony, in the 
Samothracian mysteries, Kasmilus is the name given 
to a certain officer or attendant upon the sacred 
rites offered to the great gods, that is, the Cabiri. 
The natives of the island of Lesbos, also, worshipped 
him under the name of Kadmus, or Kadmilus, which, 
by the way, they borrowed from the Phoenicians, in 
whose language cadmi, means a harbinger ; and 
cadmilac, a forerunner of some news or message. 
Therefore, also, it was that Mercury was called Her- 
mes, from the Greek word signifying an interpreter, 
or messenger — which ' was his province amongst 
the heavenly inhabitants ; and they who conceive 
his real name to be originally Celtic, derive it from 
the words, mere, traffic, and ur, a man ; which emi- 
nently accords with the Phoenician word Cnani, or 
Canani, which signifies not only a Canaanite, or na- 
tive of the land of Canaan, but also a merchant or 
trafficer, the inhabitants of that country having 
been ever intent upon trade, in the furtherance of 
which, with a view to the improvement of their for- 
tunes, they spent their whole life and energies. 

These four Cabiri Were worshipped in some shrines 
as the gods of the deceased ; Ceres, who was also 



299 

called Cabiria, as the earth that sustains them ; Pluto 
and Proserpine as a symbol of hell, wherein they re- 
side ; and Mercury, as their leader and conductor. 

A great portion of the leading men of that age 
used to visit the celebrated temple of the Cabiri, in 
Samothrace, to be initiated in their mysteries. This 
journey was undertaken by the heroes of the Trojan* 



* Sir Isaac Newton brings the sera of the destruction of 
Troy about three hundred years lower down than any other 
chronologist had done before, fixing it to the 78th year after 
the death of Solomon, the year before our vulgar eera 904 ;— and 
the year of Dido's building Carthage, to the year 883, i. e. 21 
years after, when ^neas might very well be alive. Those who 
will take the trouble to examine his book, will find it no easy 
matter to withstand the weighty reasons he offers in support of 
his singular opinion. To shorten the reader's labour, I shall 
briefly mention a few of them. 

1. He observes that Virgil agrees with the Arundel marbles. 
As Tirgil relates, probably from the archives of Tyre or Cy- 
prus, that Teucer came from the war of Troy to Cyprus in the 
days of queen Dido (see ^n. I. 623.) and with his father 
seized Cyprus ; so the Arundel Marbles say that Teucer came 
to Cyprus seven years after the destruction of Troy, and built 
Salamis. 

2. In the temple built at Cadiz to Hercules, under the name 
of x\felcartus, was Teucer's golden belt, beside Pygmalion's 
golden bow, by which it appears, that the temple was built in 
their days, and that they were contemporary. 

3. Dionysius Halicarnasseus reckons sixteen kings from La- 
tinus, who reigned in Italy in the time of the Trojan war, to 
Romulus ; and from him to the consuls were six kings more : 
which twenty two reigns, at a medium of eighteen years to a 
reign (taking the lowest reckoning, because many of them died 
violent deaths), amount to 396 years. These, counted back- 



300 

war, by Philip of Macedon, and others — not solely 
because of the protection and support which they had 
promised themselves from those deities against dan- 
gers and accidents, and more especially storms, but be- 
cause of the respect which ever attached to any indivi- 
duals who happened to have the honor of initiation 
in those solemnities. Heathen writers have omitted 
all allusion to those mysteries, f either from 



ward from the consuls Brutus and Publicola, place the Trojan 
war about seventy-eight years after the death of Solomon, 
according- to Sir Isaac's first computation. 

4. Herodotus, who says Homer and Hesiod, were but 400 
years before him, wrote in the time of Nehemiah, i. e. 444 years 
before Christ. And Hesiod said he was but an age after the 
destruction of Troy. Now 400, 444, and 60 years more for 
the time between Hesiod and the war of Troy, bring it to the 
year before Christ 904, as Sir Isaac reckons. 

5. Lastly, in the year 1689, the cardinal points had gone 
back one full sign, six degrees, twenty-nine minutes, from the 
cardinal points of Chiron (in the time of the Argonautic expe- 
dition) as nearly, he says, as can be determined from the coarse 
observations of the ancients. Consequently, at the rate of 
seventy-two years to a degree, 2627 years had then passed since 
Chiron, which brings us back to the forty-three years after the 
death of Solomon, for the time of the Argonautic expedition ; 
and the destruction of Troy was about thirty or thirty-five years 
later. So that all these collateral proofs agree in one point, 
and fix the aera of the ruin of Troy about one and the same 
year, viz. 904 years before our vulgar aera. 

* There never was any one religion whatsoever, that had 
not a particular set of mysteries, which none but a few select 
devotees could ever attain to. In order to arrive at that pitch 
of perfection, there have always been such extravagant cere- 



301 

some groundless veneration which they thought 
silence would encourage; or, what appears more cer- 
tain, from the obscenities of conduct with which they 
were but too grossly defiled, and to which even 
the high priests themselves would be ashamed to 
give utterance. Therefore it was, probably, that 
during their celebration they made use of a peculiar 
dialect, unintelligible to the vulgar ; which Cam- 
byses very humorously upbraids them with, at the 
doors of those deities, as Herodotus informs us. 
Some people confound the Curetes, or Corybantes, 
with those Cabiri, whilst others think it more pro- 
bable that they were their sacrificing priests, and 
more especially of Ceres, Cibele, or Rhea, whose 
agonising spirit and disconsolate heart for the dis- 
astrous loss of her darling Atys, those ministers af- 
fected to represent in their devotions, rending the 
air with the most hideous yells, adding thereto the 
confused conceit of timbrels and brazen cymbals, 
running about all the while, and shaking their heads 
from one side to the other ; in short, exhibiting 
every symptom and gesticulation that madness could 
suggest. 

Strabo conceives the Corybantes were so called 
from, coruptontes baineln, that is, from their walking 
as if they danced ; whence lunatics and frantic 



monies to be observed, as were suificient to surprise, blind, 
shock, and even confound the inferior class of relinrionists. 



302 

people have been called corybantes. Others think 
the name derived from corns, a helmet ; others from, 
corutto, to butt with the horn, or toss the head ; 
others from, crubo, or cruhazo, to conceal, as they 
assisted Rhea in doing with respect to her offspring ; 
others fr*om, crouo, to beat, or make a noise, at which 
they excelled — clashing instrument against instru- 
ment, and metal against metal, bearing the brunt of 
all upon their sonorous shields, and seasoning the 
whole with their '^ most sweet" voices.* 

But in as much as these all, coming from a Grecian 
source, are disapproved of by some people — as too far 
fetched, injudicious, and at variance with one another, 
— they look upon it as more to the purpose, what 
Diodorus Siculus asserts, namely, that the Corybantes 
were so called from Corybas, the son of Cybele, by 
Jasion ; or from another of the same name, who con- 
veyed into Phrygia the sacred rites of the mother of 
the gods, and named the directors of her religious 
ceremonies after himself. But Corybas, the son of 
Cybele, belongs to mythology; and as it appears 
from other sources, that the names of Cybele and the 
Cabiri took theirs from Phoenicia, I consider the 
same may be said of the Corybantes, who were the 
officiating ministers of the Cabiri ; for in the Pho3- 



* Such is the origin of drums, and although tliey make at 
present a distinguishing figure in our armies, yet they were no 
more, originally, than implements of idolatry and superstition. 



303 

nician language, Corban, or Coriban, means a gift 
or offering presented either to God, to idols, or to 
men ; as it does also, the treasury, or the coffer, in 
which such presents were deposited ; and idolators 
took occasion subsequently to transfer the name to 
their shrines or chapels ; and, as the superintendants 
of such shrines had the charge and custody of all 
donations consigned to them, they thence, naturally, 
were denominated Corybantes. Or they may have 
assumed to themselves the name from, Coribin, mean- 
ing kinsfolks, kindred, or relatives, with a view to 
conciliate the affections of the populace from the fa- 
miliarity of its tone. 

The geography of Spain appears still to retain 
some vestiges of the names of Corybas and Cory- 
bantes in that of Corbate, a town situated in the 
province of the Vaccei ; Caravainos, Caravion, and 
Caravanzo, amongst the Astures ; Corbite, Curbian, 
and Curantes, in the district of the Suevi. The 
learned men of this country also may, perhaps, please 
to consider whether the proper names of, Corballys 
and Corbally, with that of Carbery and Lake Corib, 
as also that of, Corribinny, which is a promontory 
situated near the harbour of Cork, and on the sum- 
mit of which is still preserved an ancient sepulchre, 
may not be vestiges of the same name. The analogy 
too, which we may observe between Camilus, or 
Kadmilus, a name of Mercury, and the names of cer- 
tain Irish towns, such as that of Camlin, in the 



304 

county Antrim ; Camolin, in the county Wexford ; 
not forgetting that beautiful and delightful mansion 
belonging to Lord Mount Norris, near Gorey, in the 
same county, called Camolin-park, deserve especial 
and particular notice. 

To me, at least, it is extremely probable, that, the 
ancient city of Camala amongst the Astures in Spain, 
was so named from the Phoenician worship of Ca- 
milus, or Kadmilus ; though others consider it a 
Grecian name, from, Kemelaia, a little olive tree — to 
which I must add the names of, Cameles and Cama- 
leno, towns of the Astures ; Camellera, a village of 
the Ilergites, and Comillas, a maritime town of Can- 
tabria. 



305 



CHAP. XXXIIL 



Fire worship in Ireland — By whom introdiiced — Ur a city of 
the Chaldeans, why so called — Called also Camerina, and 
why — Vestiges of these names in the geography of Spain — 
The religion of fire transferred from the Phoenicians to 
other nations — The Estia of the Greeks, and Vesta of the 
Romans. 

That the ancient Irish were worshippers of fire is 
a point upon which the antiquarians of the country 
are all unanimous. — But whether they derived the 
superstition from the authority of the Celts or Phoe- 
nicians, is what has not yet been determined, though 
closely contested by the partisans of either side, I 
think, however, the controversy admits of a very 
easy solution, if we but attend to the rise and pro- 
gress of the worship itself, as well as the names of 
certain localities in this island, which are considered 
to bear a direct reference to it. 

The first, then, who, according to Vossius, ordered 
fire to be worshipped as a deity, was Nimrod,* whom 

* Or, rather, in whom they considered the Belus, or Sun, to 
be personified. He resided for some time at Babylon, but 

X 



306 

the Gentiles called, Belus, that is, master or lord. 
From this circumstance, Ur, a city of the Chaldeans, 
in which sacrifices used to have been performed 
to fire, obtained its name, as it did also those of 
Urge, Urie, and Camarina ; for, wr, or, or, means a 
flame or blaze of fire, or the hearth wherein it 
blazes ; camar, as before observed, to burn ; cuma- 
rin, idol priests, and cumarith, the office of priest- 
hood. But as from. Urge and Ur, I conceive were 
named those very ancient Phoenician cities of Spain, 
called Urci and Urgellum ; as well as that extensive 
and flourishing district in Ireland, which formerly 
constituted a dynasty in itself, and comprehends 
within its compass the modern counties of Louth, 
Armagh, and Moneghan, I mean Orgeal. — And as 
from Camarina, I imagine, were denominated Cama- 
rena and Camarenilla, towns of the Carpenti ; with an 
Camorina — both town and river — of the Suevi, near 



Nineveh was the grand seat of his empire. This city was 
built on the eastern banks of the river Tigris, and was one of 
the largest ever known in the world. It was about sixty miles 
in circumference ; iiie walls were one hundred feet high, aud so 
broad, that chariots could pass each other upon them. They, 
were furthermore, adorned with fifteen hundred towers, and 
each of these two hundred feet high ; which, may, in some 
measure, account for what we read in the book of Jonah, that 
Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days journey. 

Her lofty towers shone like meridian beams, 
And asa world within herself she seems. 



307 

Compostella ; in all of which fire worship was insti- 
tuted by their several founders. — So from the plural^ 
Urin, signifying, hearths, or fires lighted, do I think 
it exceedingly probable that the river Urrin in Ire- 
land, in the county of Wexford, and barony of 
Scarewalsh, had been denominated. Again the town 
of Uregare, in the barony of Coshma, and county 
Limerick, is obviously compounded of, ur-egar, mean- 
ing, a shrine dedicated to fire ; or else, of, ur-egur, 
an altar consecrated to the same. Urglin, too, the 
name of a village in the barony of Catherlough, 
county Carlow, is made up of the words ur-glin, a 
manifestation, or revelation of fire ; or, ur-galglin, 
fire in a round heap of stones ; for, glin, in the Syriac, 
means heaps of stones, as well as it did, a manifest- 
ation ; and galglin, rotundities, or roundnesses. It is 
not improbable but that there might have been 
erected there some one of those round towers so 
frequent in this kingdom. 

St. Jerome makes mention of this fire worship 
amongst the Chaldeans, whose whole country, 
from the same circumstance, was called, Orkoe 
The Persians too, had their, ur ; and it is well 
known that they held fire in great veneration, 
having first only worshipped it as a symbol of 
the deity, but this figurative worship gradually 
passed into actual and downright homage, until, in 
the progress of time, as Lucian observes, they were 
content with no less than offering sacrifices to it. 

X 2 



308 

The same is asserted by the ancients of the Medes. 
from whom this superstition was transferred to the 
Syrian S;, and from them again to other nations inha- 
biting Asia ; nay, to the Cauromatians, Macedonians, 
and Cappadocians, whose Magi were called " Purai- 
thoi/' that is, fire kindlers, and their temples " Pu- 
raitheia, that is, places wherein fire is kindled, which 
latter, we may add, consisted of '' inamense inclosures 
in the centre of which was erected an altar, where the 
magi used to preserve a heap of ashes, besides the ever 
burning fire," resembling, as D' Alton affirms,* our 



* Yes, but Mr. D'Ahon, and Mr. Higgins, (Celtic Druids,) 
and all the other^re votaries, should know that those tire tem- 
ples of the Ghebres, were nothing more than, what Dr. Hurd, 
an ocular witness, has appropriately styled them, viz. *' sorry 
huts,'' —the ancient ones, being, according to Sir John Malcolm, 
arched vaults about fifteen feet high ; and the modern ones, ac- 
cording to Captain Keppel, without any covering at all ! Han- 
way, who appears to have misled all our fire speculators, fell 
into a similar mistake, himself, with respect to the " Round 
Towers," or Budhist Temples, which he met with in the east — 
calling them, " fire temples." — Yet, by and by, when he has 
occasion to describe an actual fire temple, he represents it as a 
vault, not exceeding, in height, ten or fifteen feet, of which, by 
the way, we have several still in Ireland, before hinted at in 
an early note in this volume, and distinct altogether from the 
*' Round Towers," which are specimens of the^ncs^ architecture 
extant in any country. In 1820, Henry de Loundres, archbishop 
of Dublin, put out this fire, called " unextinguishable," — which 
had been preserved, though a remnant of the pagan idolatry 
of Baal — from the earliest times, by the nuns of St. Brigid, , 
at Kildare. It was re-lighted, and continued to burn until the 



309 

Irish *' Round Towers/'* as well as the " Atush kudu," 
or fire chapels^ which Zoroaster had ordered to be 



total suppression of monasteries; the ruins of the fire-house 
and nunnery still remain, and bear no relation to the *' Round 
Towers." Here was Dr. Villanueva's greatest mistako. 

* As the benefit of light is best known when contrasted with 
darkness, so truth is the more admired for being compared with 
falsehood. On this principle it was that the early missionaries 
of the Christian church have proceeded in Ireland. Finding, 
on their arrival, a hallowed regard attached to those localities, 
whereon stood the memorials of previous Pagan adoration, the 
best use, they conceived they could make of this "regard," was, 
to erect, on the same " localities,'' Christian houses of worship; 
to, at once, conciliate the prejudices of those whom they would 
fain persuade, and divert their adoration from the creature to 
the Creator. 

We observe, accordingly, mouldering in decay, beside each 
of the three species of ancient Irish worship, the Celtic, the 
Budhist, and the Druidical — the jftrst and last of which be- 
came ultimately identified, and of which the Cromleachs and 
Mithratic caves are the memorials ; while the " Round Towers" 
represent the purer^ the bloodless, and the inoffensive Budhist 
faith — Christian ruins of more modern structures, yet venerable 
in antiquity, and composed by architects who could not vie in 
skill, of either design or cement, with their pagan predecessors. 

And yet upon this single circumstance of contiguity to Ec- 
clesiastical dilapidations - coupled with the bas-relief of a cru- 
cifix which presents itself over the door of the Budhist temple 
at Donoghmore in Ireland, and that at Brechin in Scotland — 
have the deniers of the antiquity of those venerable edifices, 
raised that superstructure of historical imposture, which, I pro- 
raise them, will soon crumble around their ears, before the 
indignant effulgence of regenerated veracity. It might be suf- 
ficient for this purpose to tell them that they might as well, 
from this vicinity, infer that the Cromleachs were also erected 



310 



erected. These ancient temples of Cybele or Vesta, 
wherein was preserved the perpetual fire, were 



by the early missionaries, as they would fain make out, by 
precisely the same mode of inference that the Budhist temples, 
or Round Towers, had been ! But this would not suit. They 
could find no ascription associated with Christianity, to which 
to assign the Cromleachs ; — and thus have the poor missiona- 
ries escaped the cumbrous imputation of having those colossal 
pagan slabs affiliated upon them. 

Not so fortunate the towers. After ransacking the whole 
catalogue of available applications, appertaining to the order of 
monastic institutions, with which to siamise those temples, the 
Royal Irish Academy have at last hit upon the noble and dig- 
nified department of a — dungeon keep ! or, lock up ! — as the sole 
use and purpose of their costly erection ! 

Now, if the monks possessed the secret of fabricating those 
Round Towers, or even the materials whereof they are con- 
structed — being, in some instances, an artificial substance 
resembling a reddish brick, squared, and corresponding to the 
composition of the Round Towers of Mazumderan ; or else, 
when natural^ a reddish grit, or pudding stone. — Why were not 
the monasteries, the more important edifices, according to our 
would-be-antiquaries, composed of the same elements? and is 
it not strange, that all elegance and extravagance should have 
been lavished upon the appendages, while uncouthness, inele- 
gance, leant of durability, or other architectural recommendation, 
are the characteristics of, what they tell us were, the principals ? 
Yei, neither in the Monasteries , nor in any other Christian struc- 
ture, do we meet with those materials above described, either 
generally or partially ; except where the ruins of a neighbouring 
** Round Tower" have made them available — which, in itself, 
is sufficient to overthrow, for ever, the anachronisms of those 
who would deny the existence of the Round Towers anterior to 
the Christian eera. 



311 

called by the Irish, Tlachgo, which some would de- 
rive from the Irish word, tlacht, the earth, the world. 



But the sign of the crucifixion remains yet unanswered? 
and, no doubt, my opponents fancy that it will remain so ; and, 
nay more, vnaiisicerable, unless attempted to be evaded by the 
pretext of interpolation. No such thing. — Baud tali auxilio, nee 
dejensoribus istis tenipus eget. The genuineness of ih'xs emblem 
and of the other signs which accompany it, is at once the 
triumph of my truth and my discovery. Do I mean to say 
that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ can bear any relation to the 
doctrine of Budhism? That is the question which ignorance 
will ask. But our Saviour was not the only one who was cru- 
cified for his faith. In my work upon the " Round Towers," 
1 have shewn that Budha, in whose honor those temples were 
constructed — was crucified also, in sustainment of a religion the 
very counterpart of Christianity, differing from it only in pri- 
ority of date. — And I have given, at the same time, an effigy 
of this idol, representing his godship in this attitude of cruci- 
fixion ; which, with two other effigies, all representatives of 
Budha — in different bearings of his incarnation — have been dug 
up in the bogs of Ireland, and reserved for me to develope and 
elucidate. 

Struck with this extraordinary similitude between the 
Christian and the Budhistical religions, the Jesuits — who 
went to convert the Beduins on the coast of Guinea, Mada- 
gascar, Socotora, and the countries thereabout — and unable, 
furthermore, to account for the veneration which those heathens 
universally paid to the cross — all of them, without exception, 
wearing it about their necks — while they celebrated their divine 
service in Chaldee, a dialect of our ancient Irish — concluded 
most absurdly, that Budhism must have been a modification of 
Christianity before promulgated, — whereas Budhism was pro- 
pagated many thousand years before Christianity, or Brah- 
minism either ; and this cross was the symbol of Budha crucified. 



312 

But it more properly comes from the Phoenician, 
thlal, he exalted, in conformity with the elevation 
of those edifices. Nay, the word, clogha itself, the 
Iberno Celtic denomination thereof, appears to me of 
Phoenician origin, from clach, he shut up, in reference 
to the fire ; for the Phoenicians called these fires, 
cammia, from, camas, hidden ; because that in them 
was preserved the fire concealed. vSee Collect, de 
Reb. Ibern. p. 308. From the Greeks, the prac- 
tice of worshipping fire passed to the Romans, who 
worshipped it under the name of Vesta ; for it is 
past dispute that by Vesta, or the Grecian Estia, was 
meant not only Cybele, but also a public hearth, or 
fire place. But as all sacred names have been de- 
rived from the east, so were Estia and Vesta, from. 



It will readily be believed, therefore, that my indignation 
and my disgust were, in no small degree, excited, on reading an 
article in the " Dublin Penny Journal," written by Mr. Petrie, 
representative of the antiquarian literature ? of the Royal Irish 
Academy — in which, having never once dreamt of Budha or 
his crucifixion - he ignorantly attempts — but with a confidence 
which, in my ears, sounded as blasphemy — to identify the above 
image with that of our saviour Christ ! As I would fain hope, 
however, that this error was encouraged from any other cause 
rather than what has been broadly affirmed — a prejudice to me 
personally, 1 forbear — for the present — saying more upon the 
point, as — having appealed from the tenor of the late decision — 
I have adopted a course to remove every pretext for incertitude 
and scepticism; after which, if my just reward be withheld, 
or viciously neutralized, I shall make no secret of the pro- 
ceedings. 



313 

es, fire, and iah, one of the denominations of the 
deity ; tantamount to the '*God of fire," or the '' fire of 
God." Means were taken also to preserve ever burn- 
ing the hearth of Vesta, as the Romans appointed 
virgins to the superintendance thereof, vv^hile the 
Greeks elected v^^idows, well stricken in years, as best 
adapted to the office. Upon which TuUius says, '^ves- 
tal virgins guard in the city the eternal fire of the 
public hearth." 

Besides the name of Urrin, Uregare, and Urglin, 
there occur others in the topography of Ireland 
which evidently borrowed their origin from this wor- 
ship of fire ; Delgany for instance, or, Delgueny, as 
it is otherwise called, being the name of a village in 
the county Wicklow, Baxter conceives denominated 
from delgue, or delga, an old British word, signify- 
ing an idol or image ; whence the Delgovicia of An- 
toninus, the modern Wighton, he looks upon as equi- 
valent to " the sacred image ;" — for there was a cele- 
brated temple belonging to some idol in a certain 
village thence called Godmundam, that is, the divine 
mouth. But to my mind, Delgany is a Phoenician 
name derived from, delkin, which means a burning 
fire, the root of which is, deleche, blazed or burned. 
From this worship also, would seem to be derived 
the name of the ancient district of Duleek, which at 
present forms both a barony and borough town in 
the county Meath ; for, in the Syriac language, du- 
leek, signifies an immense fire. Thus in the Syriac 



314 

version of the gospel according to St. John, verse 
35, it is said, ^*he was (dulek) a burning light." 
From the same root was named the Phoenician town 
of Delica, amongst the Cantabrians in Spain. 

Aire-Caldachiaroc, the name of a district in the 
county Tyrone, seems to me to be compounded of 
the Phoenician words, hair, he kindled a blazing 
fire ; Caildai, a Chaldean ; and, chiric, an enclosed 
place, or chirac, a citadel ; intimating altogether, a 
fortified place, where the Chaldseans — the name by 
which the Phoenicians designated all magicians and 
soothsayers-— used to worship the sacred fire. Ac- 
cording to the testimony of Strabo, as we have just 
before observed, the fire temples consisted of immense 
enclosures, in the centre of which, upon an altar, was 
preserved the perennial hearth. From the word, hair, 
too, which indicates the worship of fire, it is pro- 
bable that the Phoenicians had designated the town 
of Airoa, in the county of the province of the Bri- 
gantes in Spain; as also that of Aireje, Aireja, Airesa, 
and Aireche amongst the Lucanians^ who were also 
a colony of the Phoenicians. 



315 



CHAP. XXXIV. 



The worship of Baal in Ireland — Various names of Baal — 
The Baby Ionic Bel — The Edessenian — The Phoenician — 
Jupiter Thalasius — Bel with the Celts meant Sol — Whence 
the Irish designated the first day of May — Origin of the 
word Grian — Grange Mountain — Greenfield — Green Island 
— Green Mount, SfC. — The Cities, Countries and Nations 
that derive their name from Baal — Origin of the names 
MernSy Foggart, Feighe, and Feigh — Meaning of Baali. 

There are innumerable names in the Irish topo- 
graphy, which point out to the eye the extensive 
prevalence, at one period, from one part of the king- 
dom to the other, of the Phoenician worship of Baal, 
who was the principal deity of that people. Some of 
those places begin with the singular Bal or Bel, and 
Bally or Baily : others by the plural Balin and Ballin, 
or Ballim, There are, I know, those who derive all 
these from the Irish, ball or bail, a place, coast, or 
margin ; or from, baUa, a wall or fortification. This 
may be true of some of them, but by far the greater 
part of them, if not evidently, at least, very probably. 



316 

savor of the worship of this idol. But though my 
intention is to shew this more fully in my forth- 
coming work on the Phoenician Geography of Ire- 
land, I flatter myself that my learned readers will 
not think I trespass upon them too much, if, in the 
interim, I give them a few as a specimen. 

Baillie Boroug, a town in the county Cavan, pro- 
vince of Ulster, beside a fort of the same name. 
Very probably, this may come from the Irish words, 
baill, grateful, delightful, pleasant ; and borg, a dis- 
strict or village, corresponding to the Teutonic 
borough ; or from the Phoenician words, ballei, 
ancient; or ballia, the same in the feminine; and 
barg, a tower; or barga, a villa, a hut, which were 
in use amongst the ancient Persians and Chaldaeans ; 
but now they are not read of but amongst the 
Arabian writers. 

Yet I look upon it as more likely, that, Boroug, is 
a corruption of the Phoenician word, borac, implying 
genuflexion, from barac, he bent upon his knees ; and 
that Baillie, too, emanates from Baal, under whose 
veil the Phoenicians worshipped several idols, of which 
we will discuss a little more diffusely when oppor- 
tunity shall offer, because that very many of our Irish 
towns and little villages have been denominated after 
them. The Sidonian Belus, the Phegorian Belus, and 
the Babylonian Belus, were almost the same in reality 
as the Jupiter Olympius, Jupiter Latiaris, Jupiter 



317 

Cretensis ; or the Apollo Clarius, Apollo Delphicus, 
Apollo Selinniitius^ &c. &c.* 

The word Bel, omitting the letter, a, after the 
manner of the Chaldeans, was peculiar to them and 
the Babylonians. Thence the Greeks and the Latins 
indiscriminately call the Phoenician Baal, Bel — utterly 
regardless of Eastern dialects. Perhaps the temple 
of Belus, the Babylonian, was the ^'^ great house," 
which Periegetes mentions, that Semiramis erected 
to Belus in the Babylonian citadel. Bel was wor- 
shipped from the earliest times at Edessa, a city of 
the Phoenicians ; as was also Mercury, whom they 
name Monimus; and Mars, whom they name Azizius, 



* The primitive religion of the Greeks, like that of all other 
nations not enlightened by Revelation, appears to have been 
elementary, and to have consisted in an indistinct worship of the 
sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, and the waters, or rather of 
the spirits supposed to preside over those bodies, and to direct 
their motions and regulate their modes of existence. Every 
river, spring, or mountain, had its local genius or peculiar deity ; 
and as men naturally endeavour to obtain the favor of their 
gods by such means, as they feel best adapted to win their own, 
the first worship consisted in offering to them certain portions 
of whatever they held to be most valuable. At the same time 
that the regular motions of the heavenly bodies, the stated re- 
turns of summer and winter, of day and night, with all the 
admirable order of the universe, taught them to believe in the 
existence and agency of such superior powers ; the irregular 
and destructive efforts of nature, such as lightning and tempests, 
inundations and earthquakes, persuaded them that these mighty 
beings had passions and affections similar to their own, and only 
differed in possessing greater strength, power, and intelligence. 



318 

as you may see in a hymn to the sun, composed by 
Julian the Apostate, who acknowledges that the 
sentiment and the information here alluded to, was de- 
rived from Jamblicus the Syrian, who had been once 
his preceptor. As bearing reference to this Phoenician 
Belus, it is that we are to understand what is said 
in the II. Kings, xvi. 31, 32, where King Achab in 
compliment to his father-in-law, Ithoboal, King of 
the Sidonians, is recorded as having consecrated a 
temple to Baal in Samaria, called Beth Baal, that is 
the shrine or chapel of Baal. But the Syrians have 
handed down from age to age, that this Belus, who 
was called the Jupiter Thalasius, or Marine Jupiter 
of the Sidonians, and who, Hesychius mentions, had 
been worshipped in Sid on : — the Syrians, I say, have 
a tradition that he had descended from this latter 
place, which was a maritime and flourishing com- 
mercial city of Phoenicia. The Europeans called 
Belus by the names of Zeus* and Jupiter, as applied 
to whom we are to receive that sentence in the first 



* As the maintenance of order and subordination among men 
required the authority of a supreme magistrate, the continuation 
and general predominance of order and regularity in the universe 
would naturally suggest the idea of a supreme God, to whose 
soverign control all the rest were subject; and this ineffable 
personage the primitive Greeks appear to have called by a name 
expressive of the sentiment, which the contemplation of his 
great characteristic attribute naturally inspired, Deiis, signify- 
ing, according to the most probable etymology, reverential fear 
or awe. Their poets, however, soon debased his dignity, and 



319 

^neid, where it is said, that " he filled with wine a 
goblet, which Belus and all descended from Belus, 
were accustomed to fill ;" for the Carthaginians had 
sprung from Phoenicia, and the poet is here speaking 
of the libation of Dido, their queen. Stephanus also 
relates, that there was a temple in honour of the 
Carthaginian Belus or Baal, in Balis, a city of Lybia. 
Bel, in its diminution from Belin, meant, with the 
Celts, Sol or Apollo ; which they borrowed from the 
Phoenicians, the authors of this superstition, and to 
whom Baal, Beal or Bel expressed the sun, which 
they originally worshipped with human sacrifices, as 
we have mentioned, afterwards substituting the brute 
creation. Hence the first day of May, in Irish, was 
called La Baal teinne, that is, the day of the fire of 
Baal ; and several of our Irish mountains still retain 
the name of Cnocgreine, that is, mountain of the 
sun ; in numbers of which you may yet see the ruins 
of heathenish altars and chapels; for the sun is sup- 
posed to have been called Grian, Gren-ur, or Gren-or, 
in Irish, from the circumstance of the worship paid 
thereto ; which accords with the Grynean Apollo of 
Homer, and Grynaeus, a town of Asia Minor, where, 
as Strabo asserts, is a temple, and an oracle, and a 
grove sacred to Apollo^ and celebrated for their an- 



made him the subject of as many wild and extravagant fables 
as any of his subject progeny ; which fables became a part of 
their religion, though never seriotisly believed by any but the 
lowest of the vulgar. 



320 

tiquity, together with their other attributes. To 
these we may add the river Granicus, as called also 
from the sun, since its source lay in mount Ida, 
which was sacred to Apollo, and where the I dean 
stone was preserved, upon which Homer asserts that 
Hector was in the habit of sacrificing. From the 
same worship of the sun was named Grange, a con- 
secrated mountain near Drogheda, formerly Tredagh, 
which is a town in the county Louth, where O'Conor 
testifies is to be found a circle of immense stones,* 



* This extraordinary monument or pyramid, or rather sub- 
terraneous temple, which is now but a ruin of what it originally 
was, covers two acres of ground, and has an elevation of about 
seventy feet ; but its original height was not less than one 
hundred. It is formed of small stones, covered over vpith earth; 
and at its base was encircled by a line of stones, of enormous 
magnitude, placed in erect positions, and varying in height, 
from four to eleven feet above the ground, and supposed to 
weigh from ten to twelve tons each. Of these stones, ten only 
remained about fifty years back ; and one has since been re- 
moved. About a century ago, there was also a large pillar 
stone, or stele, on the summit of the mount, now also destroyed. 
These stones, as well as those of which the grand interior 
chamber is built, are not found in the neighbourhood of the 
pyramid, but have been brought hither from the mouth of th 
river Boyne — a distance of seven or eight miles. The stones of 
which the entire structure consists, are of great size : those 
which form the lintels or roof of the gallery, are but six in 
number; and, of these, the first is twelve feet four inches long, 
the third eighteen feet, and the fifth about twelve feet; the 
breadth of these stones is not less than six feet. The tallest of 
the upright ones forming the entrance to the recess, is seven 
feet six inches in height, and its companion seven feet. The 



321 

and other vestiges of idolatry, of wonderful magni- 
tude, as appears, also, in the descriptions of Llhuydh 
and Pownall. These and other such vestiges of the 
sacrificing priests, are even at this day called Leab 
thacha na bh Feine, or the monuments of the Pha3- 
nicians. 

From the sun's worship, too, it would seem that 
Greenfield, which is situated by the banks of the 
Blackwater, in the county Cork, had obtained its 
name ; as well as Green-Island, which lies in Dona- 
ghadee harbour, in the county Down ; Green-Mount, 
a town in the county Louth ; Green-Hills, which 
are the summits of certain mountains in the county 
Kildare. But we should observe, that hill, which 
with us means a mountain, meant with the Phoeni- 
cians, an idol, and was spelled with one, I. The Irish 
word Grian or Green, too, — the sun, — is derived from 
the Phoenician Krew, the sun's ray or splendour. 

Hence the Irish call the zodiac or sun's revolution, 
by the name of Grean bheach ; and a sun dial, by 



vase or urn within this chamber, is three feet eight inches in 
diameter ; that in the opposite chamber is displaced from its 
supporter : these urns are of granite. On the first examination 
of the interior, a pyramidial or obeliscal stone, six or seven feet 
in height, is said to have stood in the centre, near which the 
skeletons of two human bodies were found ; and about the same 
period, two gold Roman coins were discovered on the top of 
the Mount— the one of the elder Valentiuian, and the other of 
Theodosius. 



322 

the name of Grian clog, that is, a sohar clock ; to 
this I refer the names of Cnoc Greine and Tuam 
Greine, that is, liills of the sun ; very many of which, 
as the Irish writers attest, were remarkable for idol- 
atrous altars ; Aois-Greine, called Cnoc-Greine, from 
the hill of the sun, lying in the county Limerick, up 
to the suburbs of the very city. And although Aois 
may well be derived, as O'Conor imagines, from the 
Irish word Aos, which signifies a religious sect or 
society, because there formerly a certain leading sect 
of the Druids was w^orshipped, or paid worship them- 
selves ; yet the Irish word, aos, itself, must be derived 
either from the Phoenician, aoz,he assembled; or, aos, 
he was assembled. Likewise the name of that Druid- 
ical altar, called Granny's* Bed, near Fermoy, in the 
county Cork, is supposed to have been corrupted from 
Grean Beacht, which is usually interpreted, the sun's 
circle. I prefer, however, the word, bed, which is, 
the Phoenician, beth, meaning a house, a shrine, a 
temple. 

The Phoenicians named some of the cities of their 
country from the name of Baal ; for instance, Baal 



* Caile, or Granny, that is, " old hag," the name of a 
giantess, who devoured all the children of the neighbourhood, 
corresponding with the destructive goddess, Calee, of the 
Brahmins, whose neck is ornamented with a chain of human 
skulls, descriptive of the human sacrifices which were annually 
oftered to her in Hindostan. 



323 

Meon, mentioned in Numbers xxxii. 38 ; Baal Hae- 
mon, in Canticles viii. 11 ; Baal Zephon, in Exodus 
xiv. 2 : for the story of Aben Ezra is, that this idol 
was constructed by Pharoah's Magi, in imitation of 
the position of the heavenly bodies, and placed beside 
the Arabic Gulph, with a view to observe and retard 
the Israelites, — being vested with the power of in- 
veigling them on their march, and diverting their 
course from their heaven-ordained enterprise. The 
Phoenicians, also, gave the name of, Baal Gad, to a part 
of Mount Lebanus, beginning within the precincts of 
their own jurisdiction, under Tyre, afterwards called 
Gibel ; and the plain of Jericho, they called Baal 
Thajnar, as you would say the palm-grove of Baal : 
for, Jericho, itself, was called Thamar, or the city of 
palms, from the numerous plantations of this kind 
with which it was environed and ornamented. Of 
this Phoenician custom of consecrating to Baal the 
names of cities and of people, Spain still retains evi- 
dent proofs, in the names of Balin and Balina, towns 
belonging to the Astures and the Gallicians ; as it 
does, also, in Balimana, a village of Celtiberia. 
Madrid had formerly a gate, opposite to the river 
Manzanares, named Balnadu, comprising, in its for- 
mation, the Phoenician, Baalin dub, that is, the river 
dedicated to Baal; or beside the temple of Baal; 
which I shall also prove, in its proper place, to be the 
etymology of Dublin. So also Baillie Boroug would 

y2 



324 

seem to have been a town or temple of Baal ; or 
as, bending the knee before Baal.* 

But it is not only to the names of places and 
cities^ but, also, to those of men, that we can ad- 
duce the most copious instances to show, that the 
name of Baal was added as an honorary adjunct. 
Certainly, we may trace it in the final syllable of 
those ancient and distinguished Carthaginian appel- 
latives — Annibal, Ardrubal, and Adhubal. The 
Easterns, too, have very often modelled their names 
after the same plan, as we may see in the first sylla- 
ble of Beladane; the last of Ethobale; and several 
others of the same kind. And Daniel, the prophet, 
was called Beltzazar, that is, " according to the name 
of my God," as that tyrant, Nebuchadnezar, ex- 
presses it. 

That the Phoenicians had introduced into Ireland, 
as they did into Spain and other colonies, the worship, 
sacrifices, dances,f and other religious rites, instituted 

* The Burates celebrate a kind of sacrifice, twice or thrice 
a year, which consists in driving stakes through their he-goats 
and sheep, whilst they are alive, and planting them before 
their tents. They keep constantly bowing their heads to these 
victims f till they expire. 

+ We are awakened from our first sleep by the sounds of 
tinkhng instruments, accompanied by a chorus of female voices. 
I looked out of the window, and saw a band of thirty damsels, 
at least, come tripping towards us, with measured paces, and 
animated gestures. The moon shone very bright, and we had 



325 

in honor of Baal, is as clear as the noon-day, from 
numberless names of the topography of the country. 
The memory of this superstition is preserved to the 
present day, in the islands of Ebudae, Ebonise, or 
Evonas, situated in the Deucaledonian sea, and 
whose number is not known, but called, by the Scoto- 
Brigantine Irish by the modern name, Inseu Gal, or 
the Brigantine Islands. For as Martin, who is by 
far the most accurate and most diligent describer of 
them, has shewn, it is usual amongst them to apply 
to persons, who happen to stand on the brink of any 
difficulties, the expressive proverb of their ^^ standing 
between the two fires of Belus ;" — alluding, of course, 
to the bloody sacrifices of youths and infants, who, 
in honor of this idol, as we have often before men- 
tioned, were cruelly burned between two funeral 
piles. Nay, more, the very word " funeral pile " was, 
by the Anglo-Saxons, called Bael-fir ; and a priest, by 
the Aremorici, was designated Belec, as you would 



a full view of them, from their entering the gate of our street, 
until they reached our house. Here they stopped, and spread- 
ing themselves in a circle before the door, renewed the dance 
and sung with infinite spirit, and recalled to our minds the 
picture which is so fully given of these dancing females in holy 
writ. It seems that they took our house in the way to he 
river, where they went down to bathe at that late hour, and to 
sing the praises of the benevolent power who yearly distributes 
his waters to supply the necessities of the natives. 

Irwin s Voyage up the Red Sea. 



326 

say, the minister of Bel or Baal. Whence, too, may 
I ask, comes the Vulcan of the Romans, unless from 
the Syriac, Bel-canna, which is the Celtic, Belcan, 
that is, the burning hot Bel or Baal ? 

Furthermore the Irish, Samhain, or sacred season, 
appears to me to have originated from, Shamain, 
which was another name for Baal amongst the Phoe- 
nicians, in whose language, Shamain, litterally ex- 
presses, the heavens ; and, by Synechdoche, the god of 
heaven, or who dwells therein. An, likewise, in 
Irish, signifies a planet ; and, samh, the sun ; whence 
after the manner of the Phoenicians, who looked upon 
the sun as the only god in heaven, as Phylo Bybli- 
ensis, the interpreter of Sanchoniathon mentions, they 
worshipped this planet under the name of Baal. 
Respecting which, Augustine, on Judges xvi, says, 
'' The Carthaginians seem to call Baal, the Lord, 
Whence they are understood to say, Baal-samen, as 
if, the lord of heaven — the heavens with them being 
called, samen ; " where instead of, samain, we per- 
ceive that he uses, samen ; in conformity, perhaps, 
with the Phoenician dialect of that age. But this 
very deity, which the Phoenicians styled Beal- 
samen, or lord of heaven, was no other, as Philo re- 
marks, than the Olympian Jove, or the Jupiter 
of the Grecians. And observe now the origin of the 
Irish words, samh, (the sun) and samhain, (sacred 
season,) for the sun's circuit round the earth, or 
more properly, of the earth round the sun, is a mea- 



327 

sure of time, and this measure, which they ascribed 
to their deity, they naturally looked upon as sacred. 
To this too, I refer the etymology of Merns, the 
name of one of the Scotch counties — one of its most 
fertile, I may observe, both for tillage and pasture. 
For what else is it, with a slight alteration, than 
Marnas, the idol of Gaza, a city of Palestine, by 
which name the Gazeans affected to worship Baal ; 
for Mar or Maran, in Syriac, if you look to the ages 
after the captivity, is interpreted the same as Baal ; 
hence in the Phoenician, marnas, or marnasa, means 
the divinity, or lord of mankind.* When the island of 
Crete adopted the worship of this idol, he was called 
by its inhabitants, Jupiter Cretensis ; so that you see 
the Cretans borrowed their Jupiter from the Phoe- 
nicians, not the latter from the former. And they 
transferred their idol Marnas, with their own an- 
cient name into the British isles. The same con- 
jecture gains countenance in Foggart, a town in the 
county Louth, province of Leinster ; for under this 
name there seems to lie concealed the idol Fegor, or 
Baal Fegor, which the Moabites worshipped, and 



* We read in I. Kings, xix. that when Elijah the prophet was 
called upon, by the "still small voice," in the wilderness, he 
answered, that he only was left in Israel to worship the true 
God. But let us remember the reply ; '* I have seven thousand 
in Israel, who have not bowed the knees unto Baal, and mouths 
that have not kissed him." 



3-28 

\vhich St. Jerome, commenting on a verse in Hosea- 
affirms " we may pronounce to have been" Pri- 
apus. Although others think the name derived from 
Fegor, a mountain in the country of Moab, opposite 
the desert of Jesimmon, in which Baal, or as 
Suidas calls him, Beal, had a temple and religious 
honors paid him, which may have been the origin, 
perhaps, of the Irishf words, feighr, a hill, and feigh, 
bloody, in allusion to the human victims immolated 
to this idol. Finally, Bel, or Baal, is a name impi- 
ously given to other images also, whether of stars, 
or of heroes, the memory of which they would far 
rather cherish, and was to them more dear. 

But the Baali, here indicated, does not only mean 
Baal, but, my Baal, or my Lord, which name was 
originally given to the true God. The Israelites, 
with propriety and devotion, called God their Baal, 
before that God himself, from the frequent applica- 
tion of that name to profane divinites, forbad its 
farther use. That the Phoenicians had often used 
Baali for Baal, is evidenced by the very locahties and 
local names of this country, for instance, Ballibofy, 
Ballyboughan, Ballibrack, Ballibur, Ballicary, Bal- 
tinglas, or Beal-tine-glas, a mountain in the county 



t Yet the chastity of the women, and tlie bravery of the 
men, are traits of the national character on which these people, 
not without justice, pique themselves. — P kilos. Surv. of the 
South of Ireland. 



329 

Wicklow. This was the great Beal-tinne of the 
southern division, in which were lighted fires hy the 
idolatrous natives, on the first day of May and Au- 
gust respectively, in honor of the sun. In its vici- 
nity are to be seen, to this day, several altars and 
monuments of ancient superstition. The word is 
usually translated in Irish, Beal-tinne-glass, that is, 
the custody of Baal's fire, or the fire of the mysteries 
of Baal, because of the fires then lighted by the 
Druids. 

From this worship of Baal, or the sun, and of 
Saturn — as also from the veneration paid to Astarte, 
and to fire, for which the Phoenician colonists of 
Ireland, and their Druids, or sacrificing priests were 
conspicuous beyond all the nations of the west — Ire- 
land was designated the " sacred Island,"* by them- 



* The land of beauty and of grandeur y lady, 
Where looks the cottage out on a domain 
The palace cannot boast of. Seas of lakes, 
And hills of forests ! crystal waves that rise 
'Midst mountains all of snow, and mock the suuy 
Returning him his flaming beams more thick 
And radiant than he sent them. Torrents there 
Are bounding floods ! and there the tempest roams 
At large, in all the terrors of its glory ! 
And then our valleys ! a/i, they are the homes 
For hearts! our cottages, our vineyards, orchards — 
Our pastures studded with the herd and fold ! 
Our native strains that melt us as we sing them ! 
A free — a gentle — simple— Ao/ies^ people. 

Knowles, 



330 

selves, and by the Bards,* and by other states ; and 
the first head-land which presented itself to the Phoe- 
nicians on their sail from Cornwall to lerne, was 
characterised by the epithet of the '' sacred promon- 
tory." f In Irish, the word "sacred,'* or otherwise, 
fatal "island," is Inis-fail ; which originated from the 



* Of the ancient bards or poets, Lucan makes this mention 
in the first booke of his Pharsalia. 

" Vos quoque fortes aniraa, belloqiie peremptas 
** Laudibus in longum vates dimittis aevura, 
** Plurima securi fudistis carmina Bardi." 

The word signified among the Gaules a singer, as it is noted 
by Mr.tJamden, and Mr. Selden, out of Festus Pompeius, and 
it had the same signification among the British. Sir lohn Price 
in the description of Wales, expounds it to bee one that had 
knowledge of things to come, and so (saith he) it signifieth at 
this day, taking his ground (amisse) out of Lucan's verse? 
Doctor Powell, in his notes upon Caradocof Lhancarvan, saith 
that in Wales they preserved gentlemens armes and pedigrees. 
At this time in Ireland the bard, by common acceptation, is 
counted a rayling rimer, and distinguished from the poet. — 

Sir James Ware. 

The true origin of the word " Bard," however,was as much un- 
known to Sir James himself as to any of the above authorities. It 
being but a modification of Boreades, the name of the ancient 
Irish priests, as I prove in ray work upon the " Round Towers." 

f Opposite to " Hartland point, or Herculis promontorium, 
on the Irish coast, is ** Carnsore point," which in Irish is equi- 
valent to "promontorium sacrum;" for '* carne," from the ori- 
ental keron, ** a horn," is usually applied to those sacred mounts 
or high places on which Pagan temples or altars were wont to 
be erected; and **soire," corresponding to, surya, of the same 
import, in Sanscrit, signifies in Irish, " the rising sun," or the 



331 

prophetic stone, called liack-fail,*or stone of destiny, 
used by the ancient Irish kings during the ceremony 
of their coronation, a practice which continued up to 
the period of Murtogh Mac Earc, in the sixth cen- 
tury, who sent it to Scotland for the more solemn 
inauguration of his brother Fergus, the first founder 
of the Irish monarchy in Scotland. The epithet, 
sacred, was more aptly afterwards applied to this 
isle, when — after extirpating therefrom all idolatrous 
usages, by the exhilirating announcement of the 
gospel of Christ,f it became in St. Bernard's words 



east. In analogy with this name we find on the Atlantic, not 
far from Gibraltar, that of Cape St. Vincent, which was for- 
merly denominated, " Promontorium sacrum." 

* Ware, speaks of the fatal stone called Liafail, or ^* saxum 
fatale," which the Tuatha Danans brought with them to 
Ireland, and which groaned when the kings were seated 
on it at their coronation. This stone, he mentions, was sent 
into Albania to be used at the coronation of Fergus; that 
Keneth had it placed in a wooden chair, in which the kings of 
Scotland sat at the time of their coronation in the abbey of 
Scone, whence it was transferred by Edward I., king of Eng- 
land, and placed in Westminster abbey. 

t We cannot but admire the omnipotence of God, and power 
of his grace, in the rapid conversion of this idolatrous nation. 
So sudden a change can only be attributed to him who has the 
power of softening the most callous hearts ; for it can be said 
with truth, that no other nation, in the christian world, received 
with so much joy the knowledge of the kingdom of God, and 
the faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing can be found to equal the 
zeal with which the new converts lent their aid to St. Patrick, 
in breaking down their idols, demolishing their temples, and 
building churches. — Mac Geoghegan. 



332 

truly blessed and prolific in saints^ yielding fruit 
many fold in the vineyard* of the Almighty, whose 
inhabitants, in virtue prospering — as with the impetus 
of an inundating tide — diffused the sweet odor of 
that celestial sanative, which they had themselves ex- 
perienced, into the remotest quarters of the habi- 
table world.f 



* Oh ! let the Christian philanthropist promote its general 
diffusion there; and, should no visible harvest crown his 
toil, yet his work will be with the Lord, and his reward 
with his God. But a harvest there will assuredly be ; for the 
fields are already white unto it : and glorious will be the *'day 
when he that soweth and he that reapeth shall rejoice together" 

— " WHEN THEY THAT BE WISE SHALL SHINE AS THE SUN, 
AND THEY THAT TURN MANY TO RIGHTEOUSNESS AS THE 
STARS FOR EVER AND EVER." 

f Vert sanctuSf fcecundusque sanctorum, copiosissime frucii- 
ficans Deo: cujus incolae virtute florentes, quasi inundatione 
fact&y Christi bonum odorem in exteras etiam nationes effude- 
runt. — Bernard, 



APPENDIX. 



335 



REGIiE IBERNI^ ACADEMI^E 



JOACHTMUS LAURENTIUS VTLLANUEVA. 



Innumeris ab hospitalibus Ibernis affectus beneficiis, et quod 
mihi, libris et MSS. codicibus spoliato, apprime cordi est, ad 
principes et ditiores Dublin! bibliothecas admissus ; en tibi, 
illustris Academia, quae patriis antiquitatibus elucidandis naag- 
nopere studes, banc lucubratiunculam, Ibernicae laudis ergo k 
me arreptam, in grati animi officium reverenter exhibeo. Pau- 
cula quidem alterius generis e penu meo depromere possem, 
cui ne otium unquam otiosum est ; sed nomini, institute, et eru- 
ditissirao coetui tuo nihil mihi visum est quod propriils et con- 
venientius oflferrem, quam ardua haec excursio in remotissima 
Iberniae tempora, si fort^ repererim inter spissas illius aetatis tene- 
bras, quae fuerunt gentes quae eam primitus incoluerunt. Quod 
si non plene assecutus sum, (nee enim in evolvendaantiquitate, ut 
aiebat Quintilianus, nee in notitiA vel rerum, vel hominum, vel 
temporum, satis operae insumitur) non injucundam tamen, nee 
inutilem banc commentatiunculam hujusmodi eruditionis culto- 
ribusfuturam, vel ipsa laus, quam vos, laudati viri, pro huma- 
nitate et benignitate vestr^, post censoriam operis auimadversi- 



336 

oneni, labori meo contulistis, properaodum indicat. Nunc oro, 
ut quod k vobis probatum est, comiter excipiatis. Valete qua- 
propter, Socii eruditissimi, et Academiae vestrse, atque etiam 
Iberniae gloriam laboribus ac studiis vestris amplificare, ut jam 
laudabiliter ccepistis, alacriter pergite. 



Datum Dublijii Idib.Jtmii, aim. 1831. 



3S7 



IBERNIA PHCENICEA, 

&c. &c. 



CAPUT I. 



Scopus operis — Incerta Ibernice incolarum origo — Via earn in- 
quirendi — Ardua res est in prisca tempora penetrare — Hujus 
conatus specimen — Ibernice historiarum copia et Jides — Iber- 
nice priorum gentium et locorum peregrina nomina — Unde 
petendum est eorum etymon — Gratus animus erga recentiores 
et veteres rerum Ibernicarum scriptores— Non semper tutum 
est eos sequi. 

Priorum Iberniae incolarum, quam vetus, tam incerta origo 
est, nee ratione satis concipienda. Quamvis autem quae de iis 
fama celebrat, ea non prorsiis abneganda sunt ; ad veritateni 
tamen propius accedendi tutius iter est norainum originem ve- 
terum hujus insulze populorum et tiibuum investigare ; quaj 
cert^, magn-^ saltern ex parte, sicut in aliis orbis regionibus ac- 
cidit, eorum genus, et stirpem, et patriani unde emigrarunt, ve- 
luti digito monstrant, Non dicam inconvulsa, sed aliquantula 
tamen huic expiscationi nianet fides, cujus pretium non inani- 

Z 



338 

bus vilipendendum conjecturis, nisi potiora et magis autbentica 
accedant argumenta. Ciim enim res ardua sit, ut ajebat Pli- 
nius, vetustis novitatem dare, novis auctoritatem, obsoletis nito- 
rem, obscuris lucera, fastiditis gratiani, dubiis fidern ; etiam noii 
assecutis voluisse, abunde pulchrum atque magnificum est. Id 
quod ego cordi habens, aliquali reipublic^e litterariae bono, fa- 
cile in id consilium veni, ut aliquid simile tentare, ne dicam 
perficere statuerim ; banc mod6 provinciam veluti otii litterarii 
causs^ suscipere non dubitans, 

Cvkm ver6 ilia, qu^e super geographicis Iberniae nominibus 
discutere in anirao est, nee pauca, nee exigua sint, ac sedulo 
egeant examine, linguarumque orientalium et septentrionalium 
studio ; eorum specimen in priscis Ibernarum gentium nominibus 
et idololatrico earum cultu interim innuisse sufficiat ; rejectis 
quibusdam mearum conjectationura fontibus, qui praesto esse 
possunt iis quibus banc Spartam deinceps ornare libeat. Ali- 
quantulam tamen gratiam inire conlido, si hujusmodi scrinia, 
muiiusculi instar, tam iis praebeani, quiludicris levibusque cre- 
pundiis assueti sunt, qu^m iis, quibus cordi est gravis ac 
severus litterarum atque bonestarum disciplinarum cultus. 

Dolendum sane est, tot nebulis interfusum veterum Iberniae 
incolarum originis investigandi iter ; cilm alias nusquam gen- 
tium alia natio antiquitatum ab omni aevo observantior, exac- 
tiiis cbronograpbiam, majorum facta, ditionum terminos, jura, 
et omnem demum vetustatis supellectilem custodierit. Ut nou 
immerito dixerit Camdenus ** prae illis Ibernicis historiis, om- 
nem omnium gentium antiquitatem esse novitatem, et quod- 
ammodo infantiam." Huic obscuritati ansam praebuit raritas 
ipsa nominum, tam Iberniae gentium, qu^m plurium oppidorum, 
urbium, montium, lacuum, amniura, quae nibil habere videntur 
commune cum indigenarum idiomate. Adeo ut quod de ru- 
dibus et barbaris Hispaniic veterum incolarum et geographicis 



339 

nomioibus scripserat Strabo, linguaruni ignarus unde d(>sumpta 
fuerant; id ipsum de Ibernicis repetit Tlodericus O'Flahertyus, 
vir ceteroqui doctissimus, et de Ibernicis antiquitatibus bene- 
meritus. Nam veterum hujus Insulae populorum nomina, quos 
Ptolemaeus recenset, non mimis sono peregrina vocat, qudm 
A mericani tractus gentium. Plerumque etiam, addit, locorum 
nomina Ausona, vel Ausoba, Daurona, leinuSj Isamnium, 
Laberus, Macolicum, Ovoca, &c. non minus nobis incognita 
sunt. Et tandem : Pauca locorum nomina nobis nota, non 
jninus corrupta ac depravata sunt, qudm ipsa loca vetustate 
exesa, Hsec forte non diceret vir clarissimus, si hujusmodi 
nomina cum scaturigine contulisset, unde emanarunt. 

Nostro enim vitio sit, qu6d obscura quaedam, et, ut ita dicam, 
arcana, in veteribus Iberniac populorum, urbium, montium, 
amnium nominibus deprehendamus : plerumque vero historio- 
grapliorum et antiquariorum culpa, qui sepe clarissimis alioqui 
vocibus tenebras ofFundentes, etyma pro arbitratu depravarunt 
eo sensu quem ipsis placuit effingere. 

Rectiilscl. C. O'Connor (Rer. Ibernic. Script. Vet. t. 1. p. 
xlvi. seq.): *' Si singula nomina Ibernica, inquit, a Ptolemieo 
servata, cum Britannicis ab eodem servatis conferamus, et pos- 
iea cum Hispanicis; longe plura Hispanica esse fateamur 
necesse est, atque ad tempora antiquissima referenda ; ideoque 
cum iis convenire, quae de vetustissimis Phoenicum in Insulam 
sacram expeditionibus superius relata sunt." Cavit ergo eru- 
ditus vir in eorum sententiam ire, qui quorundam antiquariorum 
fide freti, pene omnia priscarum Ibernite gentium et tribuum 
nomina Iberno idiomati consentanea utpote ab eo ducta, au- 
tumant. Alios laudo subacti judicii criticos, qui partim e 
Celtico ducunt, partim e Cambrico, partim etiam e Britannico 
et veteri Teuthonico. Sed nee in omnibus eorum sententiam 
probo ; ciim mihi exploratura sit multa, qua.' evidenter ^ 

Z 2 



340 

Phoenicea lingua chicta sunt, conaii eos ex aliis fontibns 
eruere. 

Ita hiillucinatus videturcl. Balletus , qui in suis comnienta- 
riis super Liuyua Celiica, sinistra interpretatione conatur ex ea. 
educere plura Iberniae urbium, oppidornra, tluminum, <1'C. nci- 
niina ; ut obsorvavit vir antiquitatum Ibeniicarum peritissimus. 
Nee propius ad veritatem accessit, el. Lhydus in collatione 
linguae Ibernicse cum Cantabrina: inter quas longe minor affi- 
nitas est, qu^m inter Tbernicam et Punicam. Omitto alios 
scriptores, qui perperam geographica hiijus insulae nomina in- 
tellexerunt. 

Nempe viri alias docti, non satis scrutati sunt linguse Phoe- 

niceae rudera, quae in his nominibus servaverunt vel ruriccelai 

ipsi, quibus /ain'cte hnjns auctores ignoti erant : quod et in 

Hispaniae veteribus coloniis et nominibus geographicis nuper 

observavi, quse ut plurimum ex eodem fonte manasse, in meo 

geographiae Bispanicee opere demonstrare proposui. Nam 

qui ad punctum collimare contendit, is certe a scopo minus 

aberrabit, quam qui superticiem circularem assequi contentus 

est. Ideo ad fontes usque Phoeniceos attingere ausim, si forte 

in illis veram et genuinam honim nominura rationem invenerim. 

Haec quoniam non praestitit vir ceteroqui rerum Ibernicarum 

peritissimus, suspicatur Phcenices tantura pro re nata ad Iberniae 

Oram ut negotiatores appulisse, mercimonia peregrina advehen- 

di, vel importandi causs^; donee Britannia, ob ditissimas, 

quibus gaudet, stanni fodinas, locus iuit eorum copiis ad con- 

venieudum praescriptus. Ubi probabile existimat habitacula 

stabiliisse eorum oblectamenio, vel quasi mercatorum procura- 

tores. Sed haec tantiim durasse usque ad fiuem Belli Punici, 

quando Carthago deleta est, et Hispania ^ Romanis conquisita. 

Interea illud velim animadverti, non improbare nos aliquot 

horum nominum Ibernicam originem, imo earn fateri ingenue. 



341 

Id tautum ostendere uitinuir, pluia ex iis, quae Ceiticis vel 
Britaonicis vocibus confecta creduiitur, altius esse repetenda, 
ex Phoenicum nenipe lingua, qui primis teniporibus, id est, non 
longe ab ingressu Israelitaruin iu terram Chanaan, ad Africae 
et Hispaniaj primum, et exinde ad Iberniai litora pervenerunt. 
Ad hoc nobis adnitendum est : hoc opus nostrum est palraari- 
um, Phoeniceas scilicet has scaturigines indigitare, et ex iis 
spontaneum ortum fulcire : ut palam omnibus fiat, eos qui re- 
motissima Phcenicum ssecula penetrare negligunt, non satis esse 
aptos ad inveniendam veram antiquorum Iberniae incolarum 
originem : minus autem ad placita sua confirmanda, et ad 
contraria refutanda vel eluenda. 

Fortasse inde quis colligat, meo judicio fuisse Phoenices 
priscos Ibernige populos. Atqui non modo instituenda est 
mihi super hoc disputatio. Novi quai de Aboriyinibvs seu 
Gigantibus scripsere quidam veteres, et de eorum cum Partho- 
lanis bell is cruentissimis ; et tandem de postrerao Gadelianoruui 
seu Milesianorum adventu ex Iberice oris. Nee amplector, nee 
respuo quod scribunt Ibernarum antiquitatum soleitissimi iu- 
dagatores, primos nerape Iberniae iucolas e vicinioribus com- 
migrasse ; et longo post intervallo temporis suas in ea colonias 
statuisse Phoenices, Gaditanos utique et Tartesios. Super his 
et aliis Iberniee antiquitatibus percurri quas ad manum habere 
potui veterum ac recentiorum lucubrationes. Sunt qusedam, et 
non pauca inter eas magni pretii, quibus fateor me valde ad- 
jutum. Hie enim est fruetus, quenn ex excellentium virorum 
laboribus percipit modesta soUertia ; qui ideo nobis praeiveruut, 
ut in spissis remotissima^ aetatis tenebris f'aeem succedentibus 
praeferrent, Non tamen in superioribus ita oculi defigendi, ut 
propriis etiam gressibus non attendamus. Per illas enim qui- 
dam incedunt aliquando semitas, iu quibus non tutum sit eos 
sequi : id quod et ego hie eavi, saepe vias pariim tritas secutus. 



342 

Sicut autem haec tentavit ante me nemo ; sic indulturos vitos 
doctos spero, si quid in hisce commentariolis praetermiserim^ 
quae ad etymologi officium pertinent. In tanta enira nominum 
farragine facile est aliquam negligentiam irrepere, quam liben- 
tiils ignoscent docti viii, qui qukm proclive sit hujusmodi in 
studiis deficere experimento didicerunt, quam ceteri, qui sin- 
gula in propatulo putant, et ut ipsi casu ab aliquo audieruut, 
ita eadem etiam unicuique in numerate esse vellent. Nam ut 
sunt varia et obsoleta haec nomina, indagatores eorum originis 
sjepe efFugiunt, qui cum in eam penetrare nequirent, divinando 
et tentando prope, quantum fas est, accedere, vel a longe saltern 
indigitare curarunt. Affixerunt eis S3epe-numer6 sensum, non 
mod6 diversum, sed etiam adversum, quemque ipsa incolarum, 
conditio, et regionum aut urbium situs k veritate alienum de- 
monstrat. Non qu6d ego quidquam detractum eis velim, qui 
ante me Ibernicae Geographige illustrandae operam conlulerunt. 
Laudo conatus iilorum; illi mihi viam aperuerunt. Si qua in 
re a me superati sunt, acceptum id refero magnis ex antiquitate 
viris, quos majori cum cur^, raajore certe otio assidue tero, ut 
eorum scaturigine ingenioli mei hortulos irrigem. Nee ex iis 
fesse fateor, qui nuUo labori parcunt, dum antiquorum vitia et 
naevos pervestigant, quique pulcherrima soepe inventa vexant, 
ideo tantiim, qui^ quod laude dignum est, k geuio eorum 
abhorret. 



CAPUT II. 



Iberniam metallorum venisesse divitem, ait CI. Jac. Waraeus 
(Disquis. de Ibeinia et Antig . ejus cap. xxv.) quotidiana ex- 
perientia docet, speciatim sunt ibidem aliqucc plumbi fodinae^ 



343 

quaB mixtam habent lucrosam argenti quantitatem, Hadrianus 
Junius, ia Iberniae laudem, fodinas hasce puri argenti venas 
poetice appellat. 

Et pari argenti venas, quas terra refossis 
Visceribus manes imos visura recludit. 

Inde tot nummi aurei et argentei in Ibernia percussi : inde scyphi, 
monilia, et alia id generis pignora, de quibus in veteribus hujus 
Insulae Annalibus frequens mentio occurrit, et quorum spe- 
cimen exhibuit idem Waraeus loco laud. 



CAPUT IV. 



Ab idolorum sacrificulis parentes persuasos fuisse, unius 
morte, reliquos liberos hoc sacrificio eieptum iri, seque tot^ 
vit^ futuros prosperrimos, affirmat judaeus hispanus R. Levi 
Barcelonius. '* Falsi flamines, inquit, patri prolis spondebant, 
beneficio oblati filii reliquani ejus stirpem prospere habiturum, 
quocum que se verteret, adeoque domi suae locum habituram 
benedictionera et prosperitatem. Utque dolus facilius suc- 
cederet, nullam initio fixerunt legem, nisi illi, cui praeter filium 
datum, alius superesset, ne obsequium detrectarent, sive com- 
burendus plane fuerit filius, sive tantilm traducendus juxta 
quosdam interpretes, perflammam. Et ut certos eos redderent 
benedictionis et prosperitatis in reliquis, sicque his blanditiis 
commodius simplices pellicerent ; acclamabant sacerdotes patri 
sacrificanti ; Utile erit tibi : duke condimentum erit tibi, &c." 



344 

Ideo Vallis Uinnon juxta Hierosolymani, ubi immolatos 
pueros constat, appellata est thophet, ob tympanorum usum, 
quibus lamentabilem puerorum vocem, quae iiaham (vugiens) 
erat, supprimerent, ne audiretur a parentibus. Nam hebraeis 
thoph erat tympanum, a souo sic vocatum nt existimat Pas. in 
Novi Testam. Lexico, de rege Josia legitur Reg. IV. cap. xxiii. 
10. " contaminavit qiioque Thopheth quod est in convalle Jilii 
Ennom ; ut nemo consecraret filiura suum aut filiam per ignem, 
Moloch." 

Appellatus est etiam locus ille malcken, quod significat 
furnum ad conficiendos lateres, sed ibi ad comburendam te- 
nellam aetatem. 



CAPUT IX. 



Tellurem Matris nomine a gentibus cultam, testis est Plinius 
(II. 65.) : neque Matris soliim, sed magnce quoque ob nimiam, 
quam praestat iitilitatem. Nisi forte in hoc, sicut in aliis bene- 
multis, sacra scriptura abusi sunt, quae terram matrem omnium 
appellat (Eccli. xl. 1.) immemores deum esse qui magna fecit 
in omni terra (Eccli. 1. 24.) Unde hominumque deumque (Ster- 
nam creatricem eam appellabant (Stat, thebaid. viii. vers. 304.) : 
almam parentem : summam parentem, &.c> Priscae enim gentes, 
post quam k Patriarcharum religione, vero Deo ex fide in pro- 
missum messiam sacrificantium, ad Idolomaniam, cum caec^ 
sacrificiorum, defecissent, et priraasvam connatae de Deo Un6 
vero notitiae puritatem infecissent ; elementa, ex quibus omnia 



345 

coaluisse arbitrabantur, vel pro Numinibus, vel pro Numinum 
symbolis coluerunt. Et inter baec maxime Terram, ^ qua origo 
ipsis, et in quam soluta reverterentur omnia, ut apud Platonem 
(Tim. Lib. IV.) ajebat Proclus. 

Qu6d autem Cihele, quae Mater Magna vel Mater Deum 
primitm fuerit, compluribus postea nominibus indigitata fuerit ; 
inde Deorum Matrem nomina in veteribus aris reperta sunt, 
quarum raentionem invenire est in Plutarchi Marcello, et in 
Pausaniae Atticis. Plurimas ex insculptis hisce aris in Europa 
repertas prodidere Gruterus et Smetius. Sed et ejusraodi aram 
^ se visamin Brigantibus meminit Camdenus, etiam ad majorum 
animalium sacrificia peragenda aptam. Hanc in Lancastria : 
alteram quoque habet in agro Dunelmensi : tertiae descripti- 
onem ad se missam, sibi ostendisse, asserit Seldenus. De Diis 
Syris Syntagm. II. cap. 2.) 



CAPUT XII. 



Doctorum virorum sententia est, Scotos, seu Ibernos, Scy- 
tharum more, ante praelium, turn ad robur excitandum, tum ad 
hostes perterrendos, clamore Martio usos esse, Faragk, Faragh 
acerrime saepe iterantes. (Waiaeus De Ibernia et Antiquit. ejus 
Cap. 11.^ Has autem voces e Phoenicibus mutuasse, mihi in- 
dubium est. Nam eorum lingua yara/c significat iacerare, fran- 
gere, rumpere ; quod legioni in hostes irruenti apte dicitur, ut 
eos dissolvat, et abrumpat, faraa autem est liberari ^ jugo ser- 
vitutis, et ab injuriis hostium : tum et vindicari, ulcisci. Sic 



346 

Hispani olim ad prseliuiu contra Saracenos euntes, acclamare 
solebant Santiago y a ellos, quasi dicerent : In hostes irruamus, 
Jacobi Apostoli munimene fulti. De vocibus ante piignam 
Grtecis et Romanis usitatis, consuli possunt Suidas, et Ammia- 
nus Marcellinus lib. xxxi. 

Nisi malis Sacas a Persis Scythas appellatos ob victoriam 
in eos a Cyro primitus reportatani : quani Sacarum cladem 
Photius in Miriobib. Cod. 72. libris succidaneis meminit, Tnde 
opinantur quidam originem habuisse festum Sacca, a Cyro hac 
de causs^ institutum, et sacratum Anaitidi, Dianae nempe 
Persicae, quod numen erat patriura. Ipsum autem victoriae 
diem, unde festi initium, Sakeian dictum a Cyro, ait Eustathius 
(ad Periegeten), et Anaitidi dicatum. Addit Strabo (XI.) 
ubicumque hujus Numinis fanum esset, ibi et sancivisse ut 
sacra celebrarentur, velut bacchanalia interdid noctuque ad 
morem Scythicuro ordinata, compotantibus viris feminisque et 
lascivientibus. Haec sacra fiehant quinque diebus continuis, in 
quibus morem esse, ait Berosus Ciialdaeus (ap. Athenaeum Dip- 
nosoph. 14.), dominos parere imperio servorum : praesse autem 
familiae eorum unum, vestem regiae similem indutum, quern so- 
ganen nuncupabant: nomen, certe, quod Chaldaicam petit 
originem, nam in ea dialecto Sagan erat proetectus, proepositus. 
Cons. Selden. De Diis Syris, Syntagtn, II. cap. xiii. 



CAPUT XXIV. 



Figmenta sunt etiam a viris doctis explosa, quae de Ibernicae 
linguae origine narrant quidam, cujus auctorem fuisse existimant 
Gaidhelum hunc, seu Gaoihelum, k quo GaoHc, sen Geolic appel- 



347 

ata est, qua si ex caeteris liuguis desumpta; turn et Ibernos ipsos 
Guydldll nominatos ; quamquam haec Humfredi Lhuidi Cam- 
bro-Britanni senteiitia est in Fragmento Britanic(E descriptionis. 
(Cons. Jac. Waraei Disquis. De Ibernid, et Antiq. ejus, cap. I.) 
Sunt qui existimeut nomen cualemalec quo olim appellatam 
putant linguam Ibernicam, ductum k nomine culamuam, quo 
antiquitus vocatam fuisse Iberniam, asserunt. Sed si verum 
est linguam Ibernicam sic olim dictam, quod in suis coUectaneis 
historicis docuit Thadaeus Dowliug, Phceniceae esse originis hoc 
nomen probabile duxeris. Nam Syrophoeniciis calam vox est, 
sermo, oratio : haleCy viator; adeo sponte fluit viatorum seu 
exterorum linguam, esse cualemalec. 



CAPUT XXVI. 



Ante divisionem imperii in Assyrios et Syros, ab Aram, Semi 
filio, dictos esse Syros Aramaeos, testantur Fl. Josephus et 
Strabo. (lib. xvi.) Hoc nomen apud Syros desiisse deinceps 
ex hac caussa quidam conjiciunt, quod nomen Aramcei pro 
gentili idolotra usurpatum fuit, ut in Gemara Talmud Babylo- 
nici, de idololatrio, ubi Samaritanus sive Cuthcens, medius 
ponitur inter JudcBum et Aramcmm, vel idulolatram gentilem. 
Apud Onkelos Levit. xxv. 47. Aramceus ponitur pro Idololatro, 
Et in versione Novi Testamenti Syriaca (Galat. ii. 14. et iii, 2.) 
pro gentibus et greeds, legimus aramceos. Eruditam super hoc 
edidit Dissertationem M. Andrajas Beyerus in Additamentis 
ad Seldeni Syntagm. De Diis Syris, pag. 2. seq. 



348 



CAPUT XXVll. 



De Romanis ait T. Livius (I. 22.) In hello Punico secundo, 
exfatalihus libtis sacrificia aliquot extraordinaria fecissc, inter 
quae Galium et Gallatn, Grcecum et Grcecam in foro hoario 
vivos sub terram demissos. 

Hodie, ait Minutius Felix, a Romanis Latiaris Jupiter ho- 
micidio colitur ; et quod Saturnifilio dignum est, mali et noxii 
hominis sanguine saginatur. 

Immanius est quod de infantis, materno utero exsecti et 
mactati sacrificio, legitur apud Lucanum (VI.) 

'* Vulnere si ventris, non qua natura vocabat, 
'' Extrahitur partus, calidis ponendus in aris." 

Pratereo bnstuavias victimas in certaniinibus funebribus, qui- 
bus litatum est mortuis ; et in Spectaculis mutu6 caesos, de qui- 
bus Tertullianus (lib. De Spectaculis, cap. xii.) Ludovicus de 
La Cerda (in IV. _^^neid. pag. 386.) aliique. Jure Romani, 
inquit Justus Lipsius (Lib. L Saturnal. cap. viii.), qziia gladi- 
atorum sanguine placari manes credebant, eaque prima Ivdicri 
caussa, hoc spectaculum dedicarunt crudo et sanguineo deo. 
Vid. Grotium de Verit. Religionis Christ, et Beyerum loc» laud. 
pag. 263. seq. 



349 



CAPUT XXVIII 



Lucus dictusest, a litcd etnisca voce, senem significante juxta 
Franciscum Sanctium (Miuervae pag. 437.) Nam juxta Lucanum 
Pharsalia, Lib. III. Lucus erat longo nunquam violatus ah 
cevo, &c. Claudianus etiam De iaude Stilicon. Lib. I. 

, . . , Lucosque vetusta 

Religioue truces, et robora numinis instar 

Barbarici nostrce feriant impune secures. 

Truces dixit, propter victimas humanas. Robora ver6 numi- 
nis instar barbarici, vocat Deos arbores, de quibus Seldenus, et 
alii ; sive quercus superstitioni dicatos, de quibus Plinius, Lib. 
XVI. cap. ult. et nos in praesenti capite. 

Alii Zwt'os dictos credunt per antiphrasin, quasi minimi lu- 
ceant. Alii e converso, quia raaxime luccant, religionis causs&. 
(Vid. Scalig. Poet. Lib. IIL c. 00. et Voss. Etymolog. p. 296.) 
Erant haec omnis nequitiae et spurcitiae latibula, diaboli con- 
sistoria, in quibus libidini sub specie religionis vacabant. De 
quo legi merentur Dilher. (t. 1. disp. 127.) ubi agit de Meretri- 
cibussacris ; et Seldei). (loc. lauil. Syntagra. II. cap. 27, p. 237.) 
ubi de Veiiere Babylonica, quae k Chaldaeis Regina coeloj-um 
appellabatur. 

De veteribus Ibernis narrat auctor De Statibus Imperiorum, 
pag. 44. genua flexisse ante Lunam novam, ei dicentes : Ita 
nos salvos degere sinas, sicuti nos invenisti. Vana idolatrarum 
superstitio juxta diei praesidem, noctis quoque Lunam, utpote 
inter planetos terras- proxiraam, et influxu suo notabilem cohiit 



350 

(V. Hevelius in SelenographiciSf pag. 202.) Tempore ejus 
defectus, quantus fuerit eorum timor, quantaque trepidatio, vel 
ex Tacito (1. Annalium) constat. Et quando deficiebat, ejus 
lumen aeris souo et tubarum, cornuumque concentu revocari 
posse stulte sibi persuadebant. flane veterum consuetudinem 
produnt Jacobus Andraeas Crusius {De node et nocturnis qfficiis. 
Cap. IV. pag. 106, 107.) et alii. Etiam num a pluribus fere 
omnium terrse partiura colitur Luna ut divinum numen : ab 
Indorum benemultis sub nomine Schendra : sub aliis nominibus 
a barbaris Africanis et Nigritis maiitimis, a Conganis, Anzi- 
charis, tum a suecise populis subpolaribus, Catainis, Taitaris, et 
Samojedis, Hujus Selenolatrice vestigia reperta sunt etiam in 
insulis Java Majore, Moluccis et Philippinis. Lectu digna 
sunt quas de hoc argumento lilteris mandarunt Kircheius {(Edip, 
JEgypt. torn. 1. lib. V. cap. iv. p. 416. seq.) Barlseus (De 
rebus gestis sub Maur, pag. 62.) Gottfredus (Historia Antipodar, 
P. I. pag. 30.) 

Ibernorum morem servabant etiam Homani qui solemn! ritu 
Junonem invocabant Carthiginiensem, Lunam alloquentes. 
Calantes, nimirum, pontifices nonas mensium, quod fieri soli- 
tum kalendis in capitolio, in Curia Calabra, clamabant : " Dies 
te quinque Kalo Juno novella, aut Septem dies te Kalo Juno 
novella :" uti auctor est Varro {De Lingua lat. lib. v.) Nisi 
pro Junone Janam substituas, ut suspicatur Seldenus. Nam 
Varroni {De re rusticd I. 37.) Jana, Luna, dicitur : et in ve- 
tustioribus excusiae (De re rusticd) non novella, sed covella 
legitur. Covella autem, Urania, seu ceelestis interpretatur. 
Nam veteres covum caelum vocabant, ut auctor est Sextus 
Porapeius. Et Uraniam, seu Lunam, quam k Poenis accepe- 
rat, veneratus esse videtur Massanissa, Numidarum rex, dum 
Juno nis fanum magno honore prosequutus est in Melit^ insula; 
quod ex Cicerone constat (in Verrem Act IV.) Unde coelestem 



351 

banc Venereni, sive Lunain vocabant Assyrii Mylitaon^ ab 
Arabibus diffidentes, qui earn venerabantur sub nomine Alilat^ 
et a Persis, qui earn vocabant Mitram. Mylita autem vox est 
ducta ab Arabicse Mylidath, genitrix : ^/i/a^ arabibus etiam 
lana est nascens et noctiluca. Cui affine est nonien Lllitlt, quo 
Zwwawi vocabant Judaei; a lilali, nox. (V. Seldeu. De Diis 
Syris Syntagm. II. cap. 2. et M. Andreae Beyeri Additara. 
in hunc loc.) 

Ex hoc Lnnse corniculantis cuitu, qui apud veteres Saraceuos 
seu agarenos invaluit, Mahumedanorum forte superstitiosus 
ritus ortus est, qui summis Meschitaruni et turrium fastigiis 
lunulas imponunt. fn honorem quippe suae Cahar, id est, 
magna dese, quo nomine Lunam seu Venerem venerabantur, ut 
mox dicemus, insignia ilia antiquitus collocata et sacrata, doc- 
torum virorum sententia est. Quamquam alii volunt colocatus 
a Mahumedanis has Lunulas in memoriam Hegirts, id est, fugje 
Mahumedis ex Mecha, quae accidit biduo post verum Lunce 
coitum, in initio videlicet, mensis Mvhara7n, et anni arabici 
lunaris, corniculante jam Lund. (V. Scalioer De emendat, 
tempor. Can. II. III. et Selden. loc. laud. Syntagm. 11. cap. 
iv.) Sed Hegird vetustiorem Lunularum apud Saracenos 
honorem fuisse, vel ex eo coUigi potesi, quod Lunulce priscis. 
Ismaelitarum regibus, eorumque camelis, uti singularia erant 
ornamenta, et veluti gentis symbola. Unde de Gedeone post 
quam occidit reges Zebee et Salmana, legitur (Judic. viii. 21.) 
Et tulit (Schahoronim) ornamenta ac bullas, quibiis colla rega- 
lium camelorum decorari sclent. Haec autem ornamenta erant 
Lunae similia : bull^ in modum Lunae rotundae : quas postea 
(v. 26.) vocat torques aureas camelorum, Unde arabes appel- 
lant, Schuor, Lunam, circulum : — tum et mensem, lunatiouem. 
Nee inverisimile est ab iis tulisse nobiles Romanos morem ha- 
bendi in calceis notam Lunce, unde Lunatosse esse gloriabantur. 



352 



Ind^ fortasse Asartai pluraliter dicebantur, quemadmodum 
repeiire est apud LXX. Seniores (Judic. ii. 13.) Nam, ut 
plures Junones, ait Seldenus (loc, laud. Synt. II. cap. 2.) Plu- 
res Veneres, Deae Syriae plures ob simulachrorum raultitudinem 
erant; ita et Astartes plures. Id ipsum pen^ dixerat D. Au- 
gustinus (ad Judic ii. qucest. xvi.) *' Juno, inquit, sine dubi- 
tatione, ab illis (^ Poenis) Astarte vocatur. Et quoniam istae 
linguae (Phoenicia et Punica) non multum inter se differunt, 
merito creditur de filiis Israel hoc dicere Scriptura, quod 5aa/i 
servierunt et Astartibus : quia Jovi et Junonibus. Nee movere 
debet quod non dixit Astartiy id est, Junoni, sed tamquam mul- 
ta3 sint Junones, pluraliter hoc nomen posuit. Ad siraulacro- 
rum enim multitudinem referri voluit intellectum ; quoniam 
unum quodque Junonis siniulacium Juno vocabatur : ac per 
hoc tot JunoneSf quot sunt simulacra inteliigi voluit." 

Jocelinus, monachus Cisterciensis ccenobii Furnessensis apud 
Lancasterienses in VitaS.Patritii, cap. 96. tradit Loegarium, 
filium Nelli, regis Iberniae adorasse idolum quoddam appella- 
tura Caencroithi, id est, caput omnium deoium, *• eo quod, 
inquit responsa dare putabatur a populo stulto." Sunt qui du- 
bitent an eo nomine Apollonem Iberni intellexerint sed forte 
cean fuerit Saturnus, quern Hebraeis ciun, et ceuan^ lingu^ Israa- 
elitica appellatum Persis et Arabibus, ex Aben Ezrae testimonio 
constat : unde facile hoc nomen Phoenices, Saturni cultores, 
trahere potuerunt. Sub hoc nomine coluisse pravaricatores Is- 
raelitas Saturnum xank cum Moloch, testatur Amos Propheta: 
qui cum dixisset : Portastis tabernaculum Moloch vestri (Amos 
V. 26.) addit : et ciu7i, imaginem vestram: cujus loco habet 
vulgatus interpres : Et imaginem Idolorum vestrorum. Sed 
Aquila et Symmachus retinuerunt vocem Ciu7i, pro Rempham, 
in versione allocutionis B. Stephani Protomartyris (Actor, vii, 
43.,) qui hunc locum Amos laudavit ad redargueiidam seniorum 



judaic! populi et scribarum duritiem. Sunt qui in nomine Ciun 
reperire opinentur nominis Ciiou vestiijium quo Hercules, ^-Ej^yp- 
tiorum lingua appellatus est. Sed hoc nee Seldeuo placet, nee 
satis, ut ostendit, hue quadrat, Saturnum vero cofirmant versio 
Xovi Testamenti Coptica, turn consensus commentarioruni cop- 
ticorum in Caput. VII. Actuum, et Lexiei Arabiei coptici, 
quod Rephau, vel Remphain voeant Saturnum, Lunam esse 
opinatur Vossius (loc. laud. II. 23.) Victorinus Strigelius 
(pag. 360.) Hypomnem. Alii Syril stellara, veluti numen cul- 
taui apud iEgyptios pro felici agrorum inundatione : quia circa 
Syrii ortum incipit yUiis ebuUire, ut ciun sit quasi cauls : quod 
tamen vix Phoenicum theologia permittet. (Vid. Selden. loc. 
laud. Syntagm. II. cap. l4. et Addit. Beyeri in hoc caput : turn 
et. Hotting. Smegm. Orient, p. 89. 

Croithi vero duxerim, vel a voce Phoenicea cret. vel creit^ 
thesaurus ; ut fuerit ceaii croithi thesaurus, vel ditissiraum 
fanum Saturni : vel ^ gente Paleestinee bellicosissima cr^thi^ 
vel cerethi, ex qua habuit David Satellites, sen corporis sui 
custodes (II. Reg, xv. 18.) et quorum pars cum caeteris 
Phoeaiciis a facie Jopia? fugerat. 

De alio Idolo, quod Clochorce e lapide aureo responsa dare 
solebat, testatur Waraeus (loc. laud. cap. v.; rieri mentionem in 
Regesto Clohorensic, Clochora (modo Clogher prov. Ulster) 
existimant Ibernorum Antiquarii nomen duxisse a lapide aureo, 
dim dicto Lia fail, aut Lee fail, de quo serrao nobis est ad 
calcem capitis xxxiv. Clochora congruitcum vocibus Phoeniciis 
clO'Cor, imago in acre, auro, argento, vel saxo sculpta. 

Plinii (II. 7.) testimonio constat Romanos morbis, et multis 
etiam pestibus, dum placandas esse trepido metu cupiennit, Aras 
erexisse : turn et publice Febri fanum in Palatio dicasse. Nee 
Paupertas hoc apud eos honore caruit, ob id Diva dicta, Ar- 
temque dignati sunt ut cam eftugerent, teste ifclliano (ap Eu- 

A d 



354 

stathium in comment, ad Dionys.) Apud Romanes etiam et 
alias gentes habuerunt Aras Mors, Tartarus, Senectus, Lucius, 
Fames, Funus, Pavor, Dolor, Sopor, iunumera alia. (Cons. M. 
Andr. Beyer, ad Cap. III. Seldeni Proleg. Cap. V.) 



CAPUT XXIX 



Cuidam cordati interpretes Vallem Jlinnon (Jos. xviii. 8.). 
Sive Ge-ben-Hinnon, vallisfilii Hiunon, vel Ge Hinnon (Jerem. 
vii. 31.) vallis Hinnon, dictum malunt potius, quam ex nomine 
proprio, nescio cujus Hinnon. Vallis ista erat locus infamis, 
ob foedani istamidololatraim, infantum Molocho tostorura ulu- 
latus, elaots sordes, et perpetuum ignem ; at que ad inferorujn 
horrorem represent ardum aptissimus. (V. Dilherr. Ecloy, 
Sacr. p. 129.) Quare et judsei Orcum, sive locum damnatorum 
usitatissime Gehinnon vocant. Est enim Infernus, uti vallis 
hoc Hierosolymae erat, communis totius Orbis sentina, quo 
itidem confluxit omnis generis, atque omnimoda spurcities, qua 
sepeliendi iraprobi numquam morituri, perpetuo flamniis ustu- 
Jandi, sicuti commune sepulcretum Urbis vallis ilia credita 
nonully est. Norn Ixx. Seniores Jeremiad xix. 2. et 6. per 
locum ubi multa sepulcra sunt, reddideruut. Nee in Inferorum 
significatu salvator et scriptura ab hac voce abhorret, nempe 
gehenna ignis — gehenna ignis inextinguibi/is. (Marc. ix. 44 — 46.) 
Cons. Lightfoot. Hor. Talmud, ad Math. v. 2. 

A Phoenicibus derivatam esse in Africam ad Poenos, hanc 
immolandorum hominum cujuscumquae aetatis maxime impube- 
rura, superstitionem, Deorum pads exposcendoi caussd, constat 



355 

ex Curtio, Lib. IV. cap. 3. et Justino, Lib. XVIU. cap. 6. 
Silius Italicus, Lib. IV. v. 7G7. 

Mosfuit in populis quos condidit advena Dido, 
Posccre ccede Deos veniam ac Jlagrantibus arts. 
Infandum dictu, parvos imponere naios, 

Germani, si quando aliquo metu adducti, Deos placandos 
esse arbitrabantur, humanis hosliis eoruin aras et templa funes- 
tabant, ut ne religionem quidem colere potuerint (ait Tullius 
Orat. pro M. Front.) nisi earn prius scelere violarint. 



CAPUT XXX. 



Hercule Romano loquitur Solinus (cap. I.) ATrachiniis cul- 
tus est Hercules, Kornopion sive locustas abigens : nam eorum 
lingua Parnopa (corrupte k Kornopa) locusta erat. Erythraeis 
Ipoktonos appejlatus, quasi diceres, vermiculorum vitibus in- 
festorura occisor. Europaeis Herculem generatira Baalzehub 
nomine cultum opinatur Seldenus (loc. laud. Synt. IL cap. 6.) 
Baalzehub autem, Deus muscw^ seu Deus musca interpretatur, 
^ Muscarum multitudine, quae Victimarum carnos in gentilium 
fanis plerumque sectabantur, dictus, ut nonnulli coistimant. 
Quaraquam Scaligeri judicio, '* id quod dicebatur Baal-zebahim 
(sic ille). Deus victimarum, immolationum, sacrificiorum, jocu- 
lari vocabulo scriptura vocavit Deuin Mascce qn6d in templo 
Hierolymitano musca? carnes victimarum non liguriebant, 
quum tamen gentium fana k muscis infestarentur propter nido- 
rem victimarum.*' 

A a 2 



356 

Prohabilius tameti est Accaronitis ipsis, hiijus idoli cultoiribus, 
illud Baahehvh dictum. Cujus rei testimonium est, quod cum 
Ochorias rex Israel, per cancellos coenacvli sui praeceps deci- 
disset, de salute consuluit Baahebub deum Accaron (IV. Reg. 
1. 2.) Ecquis, inquit Seldonus (ibid.) numeu, quod coleret, 
ac de salutis instauratione contulaadum duceret, in honesto et 
joculari vocabulo compellaret ? Accedit quod etiam Europaei 
hoc iiomen in Herculis cultu retinuerunt, quasi dominum muscce 
eum appeliantes ; in quo Accaronitarum Phoenices aemuli vi- 
dentur extitisse. Cujus rei indicium est superstitiosus cultus 
idoli Achor, quera in Africam PhcEnices, in ejusoram appulsi, 
invcnerunt. Nam de Q/rcwafcis ait Plinius (X. 17.) Achorem 
deum invocare, muscarum multitudine pestilentiam afFerente ; 
addens protinus interire muscas c\^m illi nuniini litatum est. 
In Achore enim vestigia apparent Accaronis, et quse de muscis 
dicit, ea Beelzebub apertissime indicant. Quo nomine, eadera 
de causa et simili ailusione, Herculem Phoenices invocasse, ad- 
modum est verisimile. Non enim Accaronitae in cultu sui idoli 
quam Phoenices in cultu Herculis pii magis censendi sunt, aut 
religiosiores. Quod de Gragcis etiam et Romanis intelligito, qui 
Herculis sacra a Phoenicibus acceperunt. Et satis sit iunuisse 
Muscarum annua solemnia in Apollinis Actii delubro fieri so- 
lita, de quibus in Annalium lib. XI. loquitur iEiiauus. An 
autem Herculi acciderit quod Accaronitarum idolo accidit, mu- 
tatio nempe nominis Beelzebub in Beelzebul, asserere non ausim. 
Certe Accaronitarum idolum Beelzebul, id est, dominum ster- 
coreum legimus apud Athanasium, Origenem, Cyrilium, et alios 
Patres Gra^cos. Qua; mutatio apud Hispanos etiam obtinuit, 
quorum Celebris poeta Prudentius {Peri Stephauon Hymn V.) 
de Martyre Vincentio Levita canit. 

Sed Belzebulis callida 

Commenta Christus desiruit. 



357 

Super hoc argumento multa scitu digna collegit complutensis 
theologus Leo de Castro in suo Apologetico. (Lib. VI. pag. 
G58.) Beelzebul autem pro Beelzebub legi in benemultis graecis 
Evangeliorum exemplaribus, turn et in vetustissim^ versione 
Arabica ^ Thonia Erpenio Edita, Seldenus auctor est. Nisi 
veiis inventura vocabulum Beelzebul, in contumeliam idoli 
Accaronitarum, quge est senteiitia J. Drusii. Nam Judaeorum 
sapientes hujusraodi appellationum variationes in fictorum nu- 
minum ignominiam fieri praecepisse. res est notissima. Sic 
impostorem Barchocebam (fiiiura stellae), sub Trajano principe 
Messiae nomen venditantem, Barchochibam (filium mendacii) 
appellarunt. Mons etiam olivarum, qui hebraice dicebatur 
Har hainischah (Mons olivarum seu unctionis) : mutato ele- 
mento, et Jod addito, appellatus est Har kamaschith (mons 
corruptionis seu offensionis) post quam eum Salomon inquinavit 
cultii Astaroth, Chamos et Melchom (IV. Iie^^ xxiii. 13.^ 
Quo nomine locus indicatur, sed non sine opprobrio. Ad ido- 
lorum etiam ignominiam B. Abraham Ben-kattun verba Exodi. 
\ii\. 3.) Non habebis deos alienos coram me, sic exposuit : Non 
sines apud te habitare qui coluut deos peregrinos, vel stercoreos, 
Sicut enim, spiritus sancti stylo, ab adjuncta vanitate et turpi- 
tudine omnia idola hebraice, elilim, per paranomasiam vocantur 
yalilim, (nihilum, stercora) ita long^ apud judaeos praxi obtinuit, 
ut ab idoloiatris nomina suis idolis tributa perverterent probroso 
aliquo nomine (V. Lightfoot. Hor. Talmud in Math. pag. 168.) 
Isaiam imitantes qui dxit (xxx. 22.) : Disperges ea (sculptilia^ 
sicut immunditiam menstruatce. Sic quod vocabant idolatrae 
Faciem Dei (Strab. xvi.) vocabant judaei Faciem canis: quai 
idoloiatris erat Fons calicis, haebreis appellata est Jojis toedii, 
vel tribularum : Fortunce vocabulum gentilicum mutarunt in 
Fcctorem: idque levi litterarum mutatione, vel transpositione, 
oppidum, quod aliquando dicum est Bethel (Domus Dei) 



358 



dictuni est postea Bethaven (Domus vanitatis). Quod auteni 
banc praxim hodierni judaei nequitiose etssepius occulte iraiten- 
lur, ostendit Buxtorffius Lexic. Talmud, (ad rad. cava.) 



CAPUT XXXIII. 



Bardos poetas fuisse, testis est Strabo (IV.}, quos cantionum 
factores vocat Diodtuus Siculus (V.)c Oe iis ait Lucanus (I.) 
in long?i7ii cevum dimittere laudibus fortes animaSy belloque pe- 
remptos. Noraen gallicum existimat Pompejus Festus, quod 
non quemcuraque cantorem significat, sed qui carit virorum 
fortium laudes. Sed cum indubia res sit veteres Ibernos Poetas 
Bardos appellatos, conjectare ausim h. Phoeniciis hoc nomen 
traxisse, in quorum lingua bar significat polire, dilucidare, de- 
clarare ; duz autem, exultavit, gavisus fuit : Ut fuerit Bar-duz 
qui laetanter declarat seu dilucidat heroum et fortium virorum 
res gestas. Quod apprime Bardis seu Vatibus Ibernicis congruit 
qui lieroica sua carmina, lingu^ cantui aptissima scripta, uti ad 
oculum demonstravit CI. Vallancey, dulcissim^ modulations 
canebant, quae non aures pulsabat, sed cor. (V. Encyclop. Bri- 
tann. Art. Music, et Jos. C. W dA]ien Historical Memoirs of the 
Irish Bards. Vol. I. pag. 88. seq.) Idem de Musicis eorum 
instrumentis adstruit Giraldus Cambrensis {Topograph. Ibernie. 
dist. III. cap. 11.) " in quibus, inquit, velox et praeceps, 
suavis tamen et jucunda soiioritas. Mirum qu6d in tant^ tam 
praecipiti digitorum rapacitate, musica servatur proportio, et 
. , . tam suavi velocitate, . . . consona redditur et completur 






359 

melodia , . . Semper ab molli incipiunt, et in idem redeunt, ut 
cuncta sub jucundae sonoritatis dulcedine conipleantiir," &c. 
Fuisse Bardos inter veteres Ibernos Idololatras res est notissi- 
ma : e quorum numero fuit Dubtachus, de quo ait Joceliuus 
(in Vita S. Patricii, Cap. XLV.) carmiaa in laudem falsorum 
deorum studio fiorente per eg isse ; conversum autem ad fidem, in 
laudem omnipotentis Dei, et sanctorum clariora Poemata eom- 
posuisse. Medii aevi scriptores appellare solebant Bardos in- 
ferioris notae Poetas, vulgo dictos Rythmicos; qui carmina, seu 
Rythmos canebant, non semper ad aedificationem et pacem 
populorum, sed ad morum plerumque corruptelam, vel ad sedi- 
tionis incitamentum. Qui abusus, ut observat Wargeus, ansam 
tandem praebuit statutis sancitis ab Angiicanis et Ibernicis 
commitiis contra eos, eorumque receptores (VVaraeus loc. laud. 
cap. V.) Bardos etiam a quibusdam medii sevi scriptoribus 
vocatos reperies Stolidos quosque et impolitos. Lectu dignum 
est Ducangii Glossar. Mediw et Jafimce Latinit. V. Bardus. 

Hoc Saxum aitWaraeus a Thuathededanis in Iberniam por- 
tatum, atque inde, regnante Moriertacho^ Ercae filio f JVIortoghi 
Mac Earc) ad Fergusium fratrem in Argatheliam missum, sed 
h. Kenetho rege lignea cathedra posteainclusum, Regibus Scoto- 
rum consecrandis, in Monasterio Sconensi collocatum, ac tan- 
dem k rege Edvardo prime Angliae, Westmonasteriura transla- 
tum. Addilque famam tenere, Ethnicismi teraporibus ante 
Christum natum, eum dumtaxat Iberniae monarcham approba- 
tum, sub quo Saxum illud collocatum ingemiscebat, vel (ut 
liber Houthensis penes 'J'homam Staftordium equitem habet) 
loquebatur (^yar^eus loc. laud. cap. V.) 

Saxa, ut deorum simulachra, coluisse veteres, res est notis- 
sima. Exempio sit AJagabalus (quern depravate Heliogabalum 
quidam efferebant), Sol, nempe, Pyramidis specie a Phoeniciis 
cultus. Venerem, pilae, seu quadrati saxi forma colebant 



3G0 

Arabes. Testatur Pausanias septem columnas eiectas ritu 
prisco apiid Laconas, errantium stellarum signa. Vetustissimus 
fuit Graecorum raos, Saxa, sive quadrata, sive rudia, saltern 
taliam, qu^m Saxi speciem prae se non ferentia, pro simulachris. 
ponere, neque aliter, quam simulachris divinum honorem exhi- 
bere. Quod ex ejusdem Pausaniae (in Achaicis) testimonio 
constat. V. Selden. loc. laud. Prolegom. cap. III. 

Hujus lapidis portio usque hodie servari dicitur in throne 
Anglorum regio. 

Cave confundas hoc Saxum cura lapidibus sen columnis cir- 
cumlitis et vacillantibus, quas in Tyri urbe erexerunt Phoe- 
nices ; unde probable existimat W. Cooke (loc. laud.) ab ipsis 
esse in Britannicis insulis collocatas, ubi vocabantur Ambre, et 
Main Ambre, id est, Lapis Ambrosius, ait Camdenus. Horum 
lapiduna quosdam inventos esse in Ibernia, auctor est cl. Tolan- 
dus in Druidarum Historid. Robertus Sibaldus alterius me- 
minit in Scotia: alterius juxta Balvaird in Fife. Dr. Stukely 
asserit se aliud ex Gygonian, seu saxis vacillantibus vidisse in 
Derbyshire. Quod vero conspiciebatur juxta Pensans in Cortu 
wall, dirutum est in bello civili ab uno ex Cromwelli guberna- 
toribus. Depictum est hoc saxum in Norden's History of Corn- 
wall^ p. 48. Num horum lapidum vestigium sit nomen Am- 
brose Town, oppidi baron. Bargie in comit. Wexford, aliis dis- 
quirendum relinquo. Mihi valde probabile est ab his Ambrosiis 
Saxis, quae Phoenices in Hispania coUocaverunt, nomen sortitam 
urbem Lusitaniae vetustissiraam Ambiacius, non longe ab Eme- 
ritd ; tum et oppida Ambros, AmbroXj Ambroz, Ambres, Ambro- 
sero, &c. 

Habes hie, praeclara Iberniae sapientum virorum concio, quae 
in meis schedulis adnotaveram de Phoeniceo ejus colonum et 
idololatriae origine. Rudera sunt arcis vetustissimae, pulvere 
oblita, quae doctiores alii limpida forsan aliquando et a sordibus 



361 

libera in hujus insulse gloriam posteris efferent. Fastidient, 
fateor, exilia haec nostra, si conferantur cum eruditorum lucu- 
brationibus, qui banc Spartam peragrarunt. Verilm prudens 
lector, non ex operuna sapientis cujusquam viri prajstantiA haec 
nostra metiatur ; quin potids ex bono ea duntaxat animo diju- 
dicet. Qu^m vellem, ut ego gratam et obsequentem erga 
Ibernos voluntatem prodere nunc studui ; sic illi nieam banc 
observantiam aequi bonique consulurent ! Sed quid ab insit^ 
Ibernorum, planeque singulari erga me bumanitate nunc mibi 
poUiceri dubitem ? Quae quideni etsi stimulis non egeat, nee 
precibus locum relinquat ; passuros tamen spero, ut de e^ jugiter 
mihi conservand^, tamquam de re mibi turn charissim'A, tum 
spectatissim^, cujus instar eorum, qui pretiosas res possident, 
soUicitum esse me decet, eos majorem in modum exorandos 
nunc censeam. Age interim et tu, quisquis es, qui haec legeris, 
accipe libenter has nostrii ingenioii conjecturas ; et si quid illis 
rectivs novisti, candidus imperii : si noriy his utere mecum. 



FINIS, 



ROBINS AND SONS, PniNTERS, SOUTUWARK, 



ERRATA ET CORRIGENDA. 



Instead of " Tuatha Dedanan," p. 20, pref. read, Tuatha Danaan; and instead 

of, "Dedanite diviners," read, Danaanite diviners. 
Instead of" Milesian"— and " Milesians," ps. 22 and 23, pref. read— Scythian 

— and Scythians. Scoto-Milesian, however, is the correct designation of the 

present Irish, as implying the intermixture explained in my *' Dedication." 
Instead of " Myself the venerahle," p. 31, pref. read, making the venerable. 
Instead of "eatim," p. 36, note, read, etiam. 
Instead of *' Ilierin" p. 41, note, read, Iberin. And here let me observe that of 

the notes in said page, only the words within parenthesis are mine. 
Instead of " Numdje," p. 145, note, read, Numidae. 
Instead of " acquinliir,'* p. 235, note, read, acquiritur. 
Instead of *' landed in that colony," p. 294, read, landed that colony. 



■^^ 



\-v 






^-:p =(:,>,W. 



^,. c^^ ^m^^. 






.-0' 



NN^r" ■> \.V- '^. *- ,^ 'j~,:,P ^ ^ 






^.^^ '^> 



'^■"^^ >n\ .^'"-^ -^^o 






.0^ 



-^y-^ V^ 












A^"*' 












., V •- ^U 

■ 0' 










Si ^ .^^' '->. A, . , * .^^ 

V 



\^ 



l^^^; 



sV 



^# 



.--o:->^",V'^°^^^'-*°'^^' 









x- * 




r •;^, 






cP^--^ 



e^,^, XL -^ O 



>' = ^x, 









/^ 






s 



u -TTT-^ - A -7*1 '- ^'Z>" 



:^ 









>^' ■%. ^ywr' 



o 









^' -N^ 












.^\ 



; '^A v^' -^ 






\ 



\' rx^ .<«"/, '-^^ 






-f. 






'N' 
V 



-^^ •'^^■ ^ 



\/".„Tv-^':-v^ ^^.^^ 



. .c,-^^ 



% .^vv -V\V/^;o %<^^-^^ 





















- 












LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ^ 

i"!'!iii"iir''i!'iiri|'!!ii'iii V 



illllil 
021 342 313 7 









' .J* ■ * \' • 















